Expectations - 2023/2024 Season: Page 18 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Expectations - 2023/2024 Season

Big Willie

Sicario2 - Tier 1 RocktheCasbah we still in the title race?

The league season is done, will be lucky to get top 4.

At least Raya has been a calming influence on our defensive numbers, eh?

RocktheCasbah

Sicario2 - Tier 1 of course we are. Doesn't mean we're going to win it, and if we continue to play like we have today we're obviously not going to.

There are, however, another 54 points to be won so, as I said the other day, throwing the towel in now is nonsense. We were eight points ahead of City with 19 games left last season, anything can happen.

Gazza M

2nd is anyones. could be another 'whoever trip over their own dick the least gets runner up' type of season.

with what we've served up so far, I'll happily take 4th though. we've been skating by with our results this season and the law of averages has arrived to deliver a reality check

Clrnc

No complains from me

goon

We’re in the race until we’re not.

naz

We're in a top 4 battle but that puts us in a title race by default because the top is really tight. Liverpool will falter I think, man city looks worse this year but they'll hit second gear as always. It's theirs to lose. Villa will likely fall apart in two months and the scum will take their place.

We'll make a recovery then fall apart near the end and close off with a 2nd or 3rd place finish, likely 7-10 points behind the top. This is as predictable as our football on the pitch. Our upside is finishing 1st but it's really contingent on a city disaster. Downside is likely 4th at most unless we have a significant disaster too

awooga83

This team is not going to win the league based on the 20 games we've seen. Last minute winners papered over some issues of our overall attacking game. Pass the ball to the touchline and then just hope they do something it's brainless attacking and we haven't looked at how we get teams to move around so we can exploit other spaces it's really poor coaching and another weakness if Arteta as he doesn't seem to have any other tactics or gameplan.

flobaba

awooga83 it is so overly dependent on winning your one v one duels. If you can't do that then the likelihood of creating a high quality chance is slim. And with our finishing...

Even if we somehow get things to click again, I do not like the way we play. It is way too prescribed, rigid, and predictable.

Clrnc

If we finish below Villa in 4th and finish trophyless again would people still call it a good season because we are in transition?

RocktheCasbah

Clrnc of course they won't, why would you even ask that?

Claudius

Clrnc

we aren’t in transition. We reinforced from last season. This is a money season.
that said we have significantly higher load this year given that we are playing champions league and did really well in group stage. Mikel barely cared about Europa league. So we have to factor that into what we are seeing with the team…
-… which comes into Mikel’s one squad building mistake. He has not sufficiently augmented the forwards. Nketiah and Nelson are not very useful to us, hence they don’t play. We would be better off with one Saka level replacement, plus an academy kid in their place. So we could freshen up with Saka and Martinelli. You can see they are shot. They’ve ploughed through the last month, and we would’ve benefited from rotating them.
that impact was seen today. Team was tired. We didn’t press. We got stretched. And then Fulham just had time to get the ball and play it over our absent fullbacks over and over again.

naz

Clrnc

RocktheCasbah maybe let me rephrase it. Would people "understand" this transition period of replacing Xhaka because its part of trusting the process?

RocktheCasbah

Clrnc can't speak for everyone else, but I certainly wouldn't. You can't be happy with going from 2nd to 4th, whatever the circumstances. Much less when you spent £165m on a midfield rebuild.

goon

Clrnc

Bit passive aggressive there mate.

No one has been making these arguments since 21/22. The aim this season was min challenge or preferably to win.

QuincyAbeyie

Looking at how other teams are doing, what was needed from last season to this season with our 200m pouch was to at least manage to stand still. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like we did that (though some are saying they prefer the way we play this season to last one).

naz

QuincyAbeyie who prefers the way we play this season. We're such a drag to watch

daredevil

QuincyAbeyie

In hindsight, we should have kept Xhaka and binned Partey. The latter has been infuriating this season, and if he ends up going to AFCON, whilst missing most of the rest of the season, I hope he is imprisoned.

Clrnc

goon Sure heard of this argument this entire season whenever we don't play well.

Anyway I'm sick of all the excuses. We need to perform way better. The only team acceptable to finish below is City.

awooga83

The attack has been misfiring pretty much all season. When do the management actually acknowledge it and try to do something about it. We've been slow and predictable in almost all the games this season. It's just horseshoe of death attacking and it hasn't been working or getting anything like a good performance out of us in attacking sense. Why aren't our coaches responding to that and trying to find another way of playing. Give it to Saka and hope he does something it's got a credible approach. It's this point what serious questions should be asked about Arteta. This slow lumbering style is tolerable if you win honours but we fall into the usual top 4 scrap it's totally worthless and uninspiring football.

Doc

I think it's mostly because of the midfield.. You could boil down our attack last season to overloading one side, switching to the other side and having Saka or Martinelli isolated a fullback... Now that's probably a gross oversimplification but we were generally top class and unsettling defensive structures with quick incisive passing.. Have rarely seen any of that this season, that's not on our wingers (even if there form may have dropped a bit this season), it's the midfield. We are not getting that from our 6 position and we are not getting it from Ode as much as he is dropping deep a lot more, so it become all too predictable and our attack isn't able to break down well organised defenses.

RocktheCasbah

Clrnc I think it's been totally legit to allow for a period of time to bed Havertz and Rice into the midfield. Personally, I'm not sure it should have taken half a season (and we're still not there, not really), but I am sure that if our midfield doesn't look like a functioning one by the end of this season, not only will we be well out of title contention, but even Arteta ultras such as myself (😉) will have serious questions about the manager.

That being said, his post match quotes seem to indicate that the way we played today was very much not part of his plan.

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

I think Saka should be made into an 8. We've seen it a couple of times in the past and I reckon he's made for it.

I can't stand watching his sluggishness and predicability on the wing anymore.

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