Sicario2 - Tier 1 We were a cup team back then whereas now we are spending £105m on players and actually challenging for leagues

and there is my point. Thank you for making it for me.

Sicario2 - Tier 1 probably the EL final against Chelsea. That being said it became very clear how broken the squad (and the club) were, which mitigated for how tough the early Arteta years were. Since then, we've been challenging for the league, which is more than you can say for the roughly a decade prior to Arteta joining. That makes a difference for me.

I guess at the heart of this is that I'm proud of who we are as a team and a club these days (versus my frustration with the second half of the Wenger years). And everyone currently at the club has played a massive part towards that. So even when there are missteps, I don't completely lose faith in the direction of travel. Doesn't mean I don't want more.

Not wanting to sound preachy but there's enough going on in the world to expend your emotional energy on. Something I've personally worked on is trying to react to things that happen in my life proportionately. Consciously or unconsciously, I don't invest as much of myself in the fortunes of the club as I used to. Doesn't mean I don't care, just means it's easier to be disappointed, accept I'm disappointed and move on.

Sicario2 - Tier 1 We all looked back at the summer of 2015 when things were going well post back to back FA Cup wins we didn’t sign anyone (bar Cech) and look how that turned out for Wenger. Same year we should have won the title. The current holders (Chelsea) were having a mare and a team you didn’t expect it won in the end. Sound familiar?

I don't think we can compare 2015 with where we are now. We hadn't seriously challenged for a title for around a decade at that point.

But as you allude to, the same people responsible for disappointing you this season were responsible for raising your expectations in the first place.

History may repeat itself but I don't believe it's a given.

I thought this was interesting. there was something about our pressing that wasn't passing the eye test for me this season which I've mentioned on here before, and it's interesting to see these low numbers compared to the rest of the top 6. I don't have the comparative data from last season to see if there's been a relative drop off from what we were doing last season.

it's not the way we play that's breaking our players. It's not rotating them.

So we are actually outperformed our xG this season? Suggests our problem isn't finishing goals but creating chances.

Looking at the juice Arteta has squeezed from this squad so far I would actually say this is one of the best seasons of all time.

QuincyAbeyie For me we don't create enough, the majority of our creativity comes from Saka. When he is shut out we have struggled to create chances, recent weeks we've found other solutions but that problem still remains imo.

Another thing is we have no power in transition. When we move the ball forward it is slow and measured, compare that to Liverpool who at times have cut through teams with how quick they get the ball forward and get themselves into shooting opportunities. Which kind of ties in with what Claud is saying about us not shooting as much, a lot of the time the opposition are already back and in position meaning shots are harder

3rd season in a row that I believe we have outperformed xG. Like @JazzG said, if we could just create more chances, our attacking output has the potential to skyrocket. And that's saying something since we are still scoring a lot of goals. I really do feel like adding a left winger who creates more than Martinelli would do wonders for the squad. Just someone who can consistently take on their man and cause the defense to collapse (not just beat them to the byline and cross) could really open up a ton of chances and also likely decrease the burden on Saka. The right signings this summer combined with a full preseason with no international tourneys could really be the recipe for something special next year.

Creativity is a problem, both this season and in general.

It's only a few months since much of our fanbase was crying out for a 17 year old novice to be included in the first team to add some sorely lacking creativity when we were at our tedious, insipid worst.

That has been somewhat improved with the return of Odegaard, but the issue of creative burden being too concentrated remains. And even when Saka returns it will still remain.

Tam funnily enough I'm just looking at the xA for the team and Rice has higher xA than Odegaard but he's also the one with the biggest gap between assists and xA. Trossards also ahead of Ode. Now obviously Rice has played a good bit more but he's still pulling his weight. And Trossard has played only a little more. Martinelli similar minutes and just behind Ode. Really we aren't doing terribly. Saka is miles ahead on everything despite less minutes than all those players.

Also checked Liverpool for comparison. Its really mostly Salah on everything for them. Although Trent has quite good xA. If both leave this summer they'll struggle big time.

A lot of what folks are saying here can be measured with data. The big risk sometimes is we overuse xG or xA to explain everything that is happening, when there is a lot more activity leading to a goal. Variety of useful metrics to eyeball after a game that will tell you what was happening

Did we win? Look at the score
What was the overall quality of all our scoring chances in the game? Look at xG
Did we do well with those shots? Look at conversion rate or shot accuaracy
How good we were at setting up shots? Look at key passes
Did we get upfield towards the opposition box? Variety of metrics here, including field tilt, touches in the opposition box, progressive carries and progressive passes

Helpful to look at all of these, not just xG, especially given how noisy xG is in the small sample setting of a single game.