That's a big ask, Rich. Has any big club in the world ever done that? Even Liverpool got kind of lucky with some transfers in and out that enabled them to quickly bridge the gap. The selling of Coutinho for an outrageous fee enabled them to buy VVD and Alisson.

MU is even above us at 8th place.
What is it only 13 pts from 10 games so far? I think. Very disappointing. Missing Partey isn't just the major issue. There's more to it than that. I still say MA underestimates his opponents. He doesn't appear to prep players correctly. Makes you wonder what really goes on in training prior to each match.
In 14th place. A win Thursday would be uplifting, but more so against Spurs.

To be honest, Partey must be thinking already what a huge mistake he has made in joining. His wages may console him but he wont be playing CL football anytime soon unless we sell him.

Manage him effectively. Does Xhaka help?

The gooners match rating out of ten


Dani Ceballos - 2 - Simply plodded along and offered nothing in the middle of the park as Wolves ran riot. His form from the end of last season has long been forgotten.

Granit Xhaka - 1 - A shocking performance in which he failed to gain any control, do his defence work and create anything from deep. As long as Xhaka is Arsenal's first-choice midfielder, the club are sadly condemned to mediocrity.

Arteta saying Partey’s injury worse than first feared. Probably a few more games. God help us with this midfield. I think we have to go back to 5 at the back and hope for a set piece

Not accepting we’ll be out of the champions league, just plan for it

Hard to argue, guess that's why we were after Partey and Aouar to replace the midifield

I agree with the thinking, I just can't see it happening.

It's sad but people these days crave instant gratification, myself included. I just can't see fans or owners or even players being prepared to wait for the implementation and evolution of a 5 year plan.

Indeed!

Just read the sad news about Papa Bouba Diop. Only 42.

Wonderful player. Played with a smile.

Not seen that. What did he die of?

Yes, very sad. A very strong man. Away at Fulham he dominated Vieira in a game we won. I never saw any other player do that to Paddy when he wore our shirt.

Doesn’t say yet - not in any of the reports that I have read. Other than that it was a long term illness.

I think they called him the "wardrobe".

Very, very sad news. RIP.

What more is there to say about our central midfield when this average position graphic sums it up perfectly!

In direct comparison with Ole- he arrived in December 2018 - rest of season pretty average. First full season got them CL despite some pretty poor performances. Well this is Arteta’s first full season and he needs to turn it around very quickly.

There are other things it could be but I always take ‘long term illness’ to mean some form of cancer. 42 is horribly young but sadly it can strike at any age. My wife is a nurse at a hospice and one of their patients who passed away not that long ago was a 19 year old girl. So she died a teenager.

Unfortunately the drastic decline in our attack is now negating any improvements we've made in defence and our form is suffering. It may not be entirely Arteta's fault but its still his responsibility to fix it. We know the squad is poorly constructed (look at our midfield tonight and weep) but I believe he should be able to get a better tune out of these players. As much as I think he needs players and time to improve us, he also needs to solve this immediate downturn in form otherwise the club will be under increasing pressure to replace him.

There are 2 problems that have no answers for me 1. Are there formations that would allow us with the current squad to be more effective and 2. Is Arteta good enough as a manager to rebuild the club.

It is the second question that determines our future & I am yet to be convinced. The fixtures in the EPL before Christmas. Spurs Burnley Southampton Everton and then Chelsea on the 27th December.

Doesn't look good. I can't see wins in any of those games and could easily be hovering over the relegation zone by Christmas if the current form continues. If that happens then I think the players will lose confidence in Arteta as a manager. There has been very few smiles and little of that early camaraderie recently so it may already be happening.

RIP Papa Bouba Diop

Arteta, are you able to sort it out?

What is your beef with Saliba & AMN? Are there footballing reasons, or personal?
Why is Willian playing with his handbrake on? Gives us a few moments to believe in him, but most other times
And Ceballos, what does he contribute?
Why is Xhaka still featuring for us? We needed experience which gives assurance. But, he gave us nothing.
Nelson gives the opposition more to think about than Willian. Please factor this into your tactics.
Do we even have a plan B to attack down the middle? It is too easy to defend against us now.

Ole took over a team that finished 2nd the season before, had £200m to spend in his first full season, bought maguire, wan bissaka, James and Fernandes in jan. and inherited a team miles better than Arteta has inherited. Rashford, martial, mata, pogba, Fred, Matic, de Gea, sanchez he had players who would walk in to our squad and first 11

Only really seeing the Burnley at home game as a win. And there will be massive pressure on us to win that. I can see every other team overwhelming us. This squad from front to back is not suited to premier league football

Only 3 teams in the league muster fewer shots than us. I can’t recall which teams but it means one of Fulham, West Brom, Burnley or sheff Utd is better.

I think he has lost some of the players already and in particular Aubameyang. The inconsistency of his decisions do not sit comfortably with me. He has favourites and that creates divisions.

If we sacked Arteta would this group of players take us where we want to be? Could they even take us in to the European positions? Or are this group of players playing pretty much where their abilities are at the moment?

The easy step is to always sack the manager but this group haven’t performed for the last 3 managers, 4 if you include Ljungberg. I think that is the most depressing part about it, there are far too many players that really are at the limit of their ability. I just don’t see any manager being able to improve certain individuals in this squad.
The club needs some sort of stability at the moment so we need to stick with Arteta and give him the funds to reshape this squad. We need to start shopping smartly in the sub £20m range and only for young players with hunger, athleticism, pace and power.

Aubameyang is looking thoroughly pee'd off. I read in the first half yesterday he only touched the ball 7 times and 2 of those were kick offs.
Most of our on field problems stem from midfield, it is an absolute horror show in there. But we've also failed to develop a team to play to each players strengths. It seems we're stuck trying to mask weaknesses. Aubameyang thrives on quick ball and small spaces in the box, but we don't get in to him quickly enough or fire crosses at his head. Tierney is a decent crosser of the ball but we don't have a centre forward to head it, or any midfield runners. Xhaka and Luiz can both play accurate long passes but they are either playing them from so deep, not playing them or not having any willing runners.
Arsenal's entire team attempted 2 dribbles last night, Wolves had 3 players who individually attempted 3 each

AMN one is strange now. He formed an important part of a system that to some extent worked last year and it seems Arteta convinced him to stay. Now it seems we just didn't want to lose a swiss army knife player but don't have a plan for how to use him. Right now he couldn't do any worse so deserves some time.
Saliba, some people who have watched him for the U23's have said they can see why Arteta is reluctant to throw him in, he is still raw and takes risks.
Ceballos is an odd one, seems to spend most of his time in a deep right back position. Pointless. Xhaka is the same, dropping deeper to get some time on the ball because he cant work under the tighter pressure in midfield. Both just sit on top of our defence making any transition to the forwards impossible. It is why Partey was such a breath of fresh air.
I agree Nelson deserves more game time, at least he's willing to run at opponents instead of constantly passing it backwards. If we continue with 4-3-3 then at least try Willian in the hole behind the striker, it has never been Willock's best position.

God knows what team to pick v Spurs but it feels like we need to go back to the 3-4-3 or even 3-5-2, cut any space for them to run in to behind as they will kill us on the counter attack. With a back 3 you can afford one of those defenders to go man to man with Kane and follow him even when he drops deep. Use Bellerin and AMN in the wing back positions as the out-ball and with pace to counter attack. Picking two from Elneny, Ceballos, Xhaka, Willock in central midfield fills me with no joy and this is where we'll likely lose the game. It wouldn't be so bad if you just instructed the midfield to sit and be disciplined and play longer balls in to space for a front 3 to score and create their own chances but we don't have that.
My only hope is Mourinho is naturally cagey so will probably be happy to keep things tight and nick it. Which is what he did last year.

I will be pleasantly surprised if we get away with anything other than a good hiding at the the hands of Tottenham next weekend. We are as poor as we’ve ever been.

I like Arteta, I like the way he speaks, I like his connection with the club, I like how he presents himself. But I also think it’s safe to say he is having an absolute mare when it comes to our PL form. He is under real pressure.

Shame that Partey will miss a fair few games but we have to use what we have. I’d give Nelson a run of games. He can’t be any less effective than Willian.

We’re a mess and its not changing anytime soon.

I think you are right. Arteta has lost some of his players.

There are rumblings that some of the dressing room are not happy with the way he has ostracised some players, the way he has dealt with certain situations. It looks like we will end up selling Guendouzi for peanuts when a season ago we probably could have got £35m for him.

Personally, since day one I have had some misgivings about his team selections, his tactics and his substitutions despite an FA cup win and a few great results against the big boys.

I feel that what we are seeing from Arteta is more David Moyes Everton than Pep Guardiola Man City.

Clearly he has not been given a great hand to work with in terms of the squad but its not the worst set of players either.

Are these the same players that downed tools for Emery, couldn't give Freddie any kind of new manager bounce and also downed tools for Wenger?

I find it hard to believe the players have lost any faith in what Arteta is doing after so many of them have specifically praised him last year as a breath of fresh air and loved his methods. The whole club is struggling, players and manager. There is a massive lack of confidence in the team, as has been the way over the last 5 or so years, we can build our confidence up but any set back knocks the entire team back to square 1 and facing starting again.
If we got 1-0 up and Arteta just said sit on this and defend for your lives and win 1-0 I'd still have more confidence in this side to do it than any Arsenal team in the last 10 years and that is mostly down to Arteta. He is definitely struggling and looks like he's just trying anything right now to scrap any kind of result but it just isn't working.

The last transfer market was a huge problem, we have a bloated squad. If we wanted Partey and Gabriel we had to leave two senior players out of the squad altogether. When results don't go well there will be huge numbers wanting Özil back (maybe not so many for Sokratis) but Özil was a massive part of the problem, he simply was not solving our creativity problems before, the stats showed his lack of influence on games. In a perfect world he'd have done what Sanchez did and take a hit in order to go and play football somewhere but he didn't - not his fault of course.
Guendouzi was possibly the sacrificial lamb of Arteta getting across his non negotiables. A new boss showing he isn't messing around if you break the rules. If we kept Guendouzi that is another player from this bloated squad who couldn't be registerred this season. Torreira also.
The squad needed wiping clean, at least 12-15 of them. We're almost in a situation where we need to wait for each of them to run their contract down in order to get rid because we're struggling to get rid of players on free transfers because their wages are so high. That is certainly not Arteta's fault.

I’m reading some hysterical bollocks on here

Do you think Arteta whispers in ceballos ear in the changing room before each game “by the way make sure you don’t follow your run into the box EVER”

Do you think he encourages Xhaka to walk around the pitch like a dad playing in his kids 5 a side literally playing at walking pace.

There’s isn’t a single club in this league that would play a midfield 3 of willock, Xhaka and ceballos. There certainly isn’t a team above us in the league who I would swap our midfield 3 for theirs.

In the end it’s Nothing to do with Arteta and is a mathematical calculation.

Xhaka, Ceballos, kolasinac, Mustafi, willock, Nketiah

Harsh but all players not capable yet or in some cases ever of playing up to premiership standard. If you pick one of them you may scramble a win

Two? A result is unlikely

Three ? No chance just no chance.

There isn’t a dressing room to lose. If you think these are players playing massively beneath themselves I don’t know what to say.

I read a piece that illustrated the absolute mess Arsenal got in in the last few years of Wenger but more importantly what has happened since. Every single major building block post Wenger has come and gone in 2 years. Gazidis got rid of Wenger and upped and left, Mislintat came and went, Sanlehhi in and out under a cloud, Fahmy the contracts guy gone and obviously Emery. All of that was put in place for the post wenger era and it all crumbled. Has any other team had that amount of upheaval in the most senior positions? Even Man U have kept the off field structure stable. Man U are 7 years post Fergie, gone through 4 managers, spent close to £1billion, and the squad Fergie left was a lot better than the one Wenger left and even they have not even come close to a title challenge in those years. The transition from the dynasty is huge.
Even now the set up isn't right, even if you believe in Edu, who else is there supporting him to bridge the gap between board and team?
Arteta of course has made mistakes but in terms of our current plight there is really only a very small percentage that can be laid at his door I think.

Rumour has it Arteta whispers in his midfielders ears before each game “DONT TAKE ANY SHOTS FROM OUTSIDE THE AREA”

This is his fault.