Wow. When you put it in those terms, it doesn't matter who the manager is. We're *%^@**.

Your wrong.

The majority on this is Kroenke, Wenger and Gazidis specific

Slightly more sympathy for Gazidis who realised Wenger was past it but was not allowed to sack him.

Wenger drove our squad value to a point it’s worthless, drove away our best players and made the remaining ones worse.

Like the article illustrates it’s a multitude of issues but total incompetent running of a football club top to bottom

It’s very much a faded memory. That time when we were knocking out trophies under a great manager Arsene, and moving to a brand new large stadium would enable us to kick on for total domination. No one could stop us.

Had to give the final a miss due to an early engagement, day after. Had hoped to wake up with good news. Must admit, waking up to the result did not affect me as much as it usually does. In fact, I am currently just happy another frustrating season is over. For next season, bring in the promising youth players. And please Emery, give them more playing time. Stop procrastinating on them. Stop procrastinating like your predecessor did with his decision making. It is clear so many of the senior players are either not good enough, not driven enough or just plain poor with their attitude. Shift them aside for the youth players. A season or two of mid-table, but very driven players is better than watching your overpaid players strolling around. Hopefully, the youth players grow and in 2 years, get complemented with one or two star players. Well, being an armchair coach is easy. And I admit it is easier said than done. But, the current state of the club and its long list of poor players is clear to so many of our fans. Not to mention, reporters, ex-players, other ex-players, and all other fans ...............

Utterly repulsive. The line that brings it all home is we’re done as a top 4 club. I think that’s probably true.

I've been watching the Man City documentary on Amazon, All or Nothing. They seem like the absolute polar opposite of our club, even take away the money and the difference is vast.

The enthusiasm, energy and intensity in everything Guardiola does is amazing. The respect everyone has for him is huge, they hang off his every word and would clearly run through a brick wall for him.
Secondly, Vincent Kompany is the absolute epitome of a club captain and leader of that group. He sets the standard, he speaks players listen.
Third, the board of directors are absolutely single minded in what they are doing, they are clear, collaborative and decisive.

The link between board, manager, players and fans is exactly what any successful club needs. Strong links between all 4 and all pulling in the same direction. I don't think we have a single strong link between any of those 4 main groups of Arsenal football club.
The fans hate the owner, indifferent about the manager and would happily boo some of the players.
The board and manager may say the same things in public but the board won't back him with funds.
The manager and players have had fallings out (Özil) and the players don't seem to be able to take the managers instructions, or the manager can't motivate the players.
Total discord at every turn

The start of the turnaround is to get the fans on board with something we can believe in, that means a revolution, stop making the same mistakes on the pitch, inject some pride, hunger and passion in every game.

How will that happen with a disinterested owner who only sees the balance sheet?, he wasn't even there for a cup final ffs, even the Russian gangster was there despite probably wanting out of Chelsea now, just shows the level of interest/drive/ambition Kroenke has - zero.

So frustrating as I've seen this coming for a decade, too all those utter muppets who held up banners saying hate Usmanov etc. this is on you, enjoy watching the next 20 years of midtable football, you fools actually bought the self-sustaining PR bs, hook, line and sinker.

I think we all bought it didn’t we? If we go back far enough to when Abramovic first turned up “firing £50 notes onto the Highbury lawn”

Emery meant to be going for Muenier the right back from PSG. He could cost £20m odd. With Bellerin pretty high up on most fans keep list it would seem a strange priority.
If you were stacked full of 2 top players in every position except RB and we’re kicking your heels together wondering how to spend your budget then this absolutely makes sense, but hopefully any money we do have goes straight on a pair of CB

Arseblog is right. Kroenke is our Gillette and Hicks owner. We need to up our discontent.

Bellerin did his cruciate. That’s a pretty major injury which pretty much ruined Paul Gascoignes career. It’s not something you can walk back into the side after and be expected to play 70 games in a full campaign. The signing would be logical if a little frustrating as we need to reinforce many parts of our bog average side

If I was Aubameyang I would be on my bike this summer.

He's 30, at the peak of his powers as the PL golden boot winner and will want to win things before his career ends. Why would you stay to play in the Europa League or compete for a top four place.

Both strikers might want to leave. Alan Davies of Tuesday club fame wrote a small list of players he wanted to keep and both strikers were not on it.

Let’s say we did sell

Lacazette 80 million
Aubameyang 60
Mustafi 20
El Nenny 10 ( btw my mate knows the girl he’s “dating” and she says he has already agreed to join a Turkish club)

That would give the club 170 million to wheel and deal in the market and try and rebuild the squad. Would be a major call but drastic measures are needed. Any further exits are handy but I cant see us being able to offload Özil and Henrik

We are stuck with Kroenke. There is no economic reason why he'd want to sell. We are now a club where you go in order to eventually get to what is deemed a bigger club. Within our league its City and Liverpool but also Man Utd even though they finish below us. In the near future it will be sperz if it isn't already.

A lot of fans are naive about our place in the football universe.

Why is it such nonsense .... ?

Klopp took over ; got dealt some harsh lessons and transformed the side .

Emery has done the opposite ; took over ... embarked on a long unbeaten run ; then managed to totally f*%%$ up the easiest end of season run in for Champions League qualification against low level opposition who had nothing to play for .

It would suggest that the players wanted to perform for the "new broom" initially ; then either [ a ] moved into their comfort zone or [b ] got disillusioned with his tactics and fell to pieces .

Would you trust us to spend it wisely though, we wasted about a shedload on a loan move for the Spanish lad in Jan.

Gidday Soc .... I wouldn't because Unai comes across as a bit soft .

Sure he inherited the train wreck from the last Wenger years but the basic principle , attack at pace as passed him by .

Essential ingredients needed in this side are passion and size and I don't think he's grasped that .

Every other team in the Premier League knows get amongst us and our gay boys will fold .

Look at the final , Wolves , Palace , Leicester etc etc etc ... we move the ball here , there , everywhere back and forth HOPING something will happen .

Other teams have players Zaha , Sterling , Hazard , Son who want to MAKE something happen

Yep and to be frank I can't be arsed with it, it may sound ungrateful but you have to have hope in football, with KSE there is no hope, just permanent, unrelenting mediocrity, well I am not signing up for that s**t. Take YOUR Arsenal and shove it. My Arsenal is dead.

I wonder how many of the other 19 prem clubs will outspend us this summer? Make it 18 if Chelsea have a ban. I reckon at least 12/13 of them will have a net spend more than us.

I get that our wage bill compared to Leicester or Wolves is huge, but if that is the reason we can’t spend more than them, and it trumps the millions more we get than them in sponsorship, gate receipts, other commercial deals, prize money and generally years of being a top club then that is nonsense.

For example if our squad of 25 is on an average of £100k a week each that is £130m a year on wages. If we’re conservative and say liecester are on half of that at £65m per year. Well we just earned £40m from the Europa run and have signed a £30m Adidas deal and a £10m a year Emirates deal AND we bring in around £30m more per season in ticket sales due to a larger stadium and higher prices.
I mean the whole thing is just not logical that any team outside the top 6 can outspend us even with our bigger wage spend

This is exactly what I said about wenger. The hope was gone. The unknown was gone. Why would you follow sport without the hope?

Yes, I'd agree with that. He merits another season, but if, as sometimes happens, the poor form at the end of one campaign flows into the start of another, he could be gone by Christmas. Losing a final to a better team happens, and is understandable. The way the team failed to take its unexpected chance of a top four position was hugely disappointing, and was far more blameworthy.

And then a man with untold billions in his pocket turned up in West London and rapidly changed the face of English and European football. Anyway, we had Dennis Bergkamp, and that memory will never fade!

Well actually Jack Walker turned up at Blackburn and started changing English football by just buying a title. Then others went ‘well I could do that as well’. No one rung their hands and said let’s stop this nonsense.

No one spoke up when the EPL effectively split from tradition and I suspect no one will speak up if they get some European super league going.

I see Bernard hasn't turned up yet after the debacle in Baku. Hope he managed to get away alright or else he's bolt holed it somewhere to ease the pain.

PSG had him and dumped him and they have far better players than Arsenal. After the Wenger shite, I have zero patience for "wait till May" when there has been no improvement. Players and the defence have become significantly worse through the season. I don't have champagne expectations at all. But I do expect a good manager to be able to improve things like shape, tactics, organisation and to at least instill some effort.

There was a point where Özil was out on the right wing in the first half and he played a short pass to AMN I think. Özil then immediately stopped and walked very slowly back into the middle of the field while AMN tried to take on 3 players alone. That guy should have never been on the pitch and Emery put him there.

In all likelihood the only defenders Emery really wants to keep are the two that got injured. Sokratis is useful for the next couple of years, but who else would he keep? Koscielny has no explosiveness since his injury and is struggling. Monreal can't stay fit and is past his best. Kolasinac can't track runners. Lichtseiner is done. Čech is retiring. Mustafi for all his decent general play has proven immune to cutting out terrible errors. Mavrapanos has been injured all year.

As for further forward, Özil can't press effectively. Ramsey can't stay fit, and our other established midfielders aren't mobile enough against athletic opposition.

Emery started to implement a style, but the squad is so weak and ill balanced that after a couple of injuries he had to abandon it all just to try to scrape some points.

This isn't to give him a pass - he made some mistakes that are simple to see. But we have by far the weakest defence and central midfield of the top 6.

AMN isn't a full back, hence his errors. Until 3 years ago he was a right winger or a number 10, and is twice the player in central midfield. Rumours linking us to Mounier from PSG, who had his best career form under Emery. If it frees AMN to get a go in his best position, I'm all for it.

I am closing the season for my own mental health. That’s not to say I will still not buy in about any new posts.

Can I thank all the moderators for another season. Can I also say a thank you to Steve’s family for keeping his memory alive via this site. To all other forumites great to have interaction across the world with so many other fans. It would be a lonely Arsenal existence without this site. That is one positive of the internet.

Smith-Rowe is 18 and has 2 Europa League goals, and has been good everytime he's played - AND Leipzig who's scouting system is one of the best in Europe wanted to buy him before taking him on loan and then subsequently, despite him being injured most of the time he was there. I think he's an excellent prospect.

I would say that while none of these kids are Cesc level, it is the best crop we've had since the mid 1980s. Of course they won't all make it, but Nelson, Nketiah, Willock, Smith-Rowe, Saka, Ameichi, John-Jules, all have a chance, and I suspect 2-3 will make useful squad players at worst. To my mind Willock, Nelson, Nketiah and maybe Emile Smith Rowe are absolutely nailed on as rotation options next season, and one or two will flourish.

Xhaka's not deadwood. He's not good enough for our level of ambition, but his good qualities are ones we need and aren't replicated elsewhere. I think during this massive rebuild, he will be important to us.

And then Abramovich turned up needing an insurance policy against assassination and the landscape of football changed forever. Suddenly foreign owner and cash were a thing and our old board backed the wrong horse.

Been saying the above for years. Diamond Danny at least put some money in at key times, but the rest of them just milked the cash cow to make themselves rich

If you did a fan approval rating of the top 6 clubs owners and ranked them from best to worst you’d pretty much get the league table order.

I’d much rather be in Man U’s position than ours. They do have sellable assets and can spend their way back in tothe top 4. Like us their own decisions are what is holding them back, unlike us their money means they will get it right sooner or later

Lots of theories of how to restart and bring some order and success toArssnal. I haven’t seen anyone mention brining back more of the old players. Particularly from the invincible era. It is probably too early for a lot of them but some are making waves in the game now. Without any leadership from the players we need to get it from the coaching staff, a reminder to every player who walks in to the club whatthe standards are and that pressure is good and we can’t settle for anything less than 100% effort and victory. There are some very intelligent and respected players from that era. That they were shut out by wenger and the club is another stick to beat them with

So emery can take over get the same harsh lessons but not the chance to fix them. Injuries to Bellerin and holding as well as not having a fit for purpose left back wrecked our season. No manager could change this

Ok where do you start, i mean what would you advocate dropping Özil for Willock? We would have lost anyway and people would have slagged off Emery for dropping Özil. For what it’s worth I think Wednesday was the straw that broke the camels back for Özil. He’s moved on or a bit part player next year (more likely the latter)

I’ve watched arsenal since mid 80s and this is without a doubt the most mediocre Arsenal squad we have had in that period my opinion. There is such a dearth of talent. If you even look at the squad Rioch had there was an embarrassment of riches compared to us now. The manager can instil confidence and belief but when there is such a vast chasm in the talent between the teams let’s be honest he’s on a hiding.

He doesn’t want to play Özil, he doesn’t want to play Kolasinac (who he blatantly doesn’t trust) , he knows Laurent was shot to pieces. Wishing and using his magical powers doesn’t change these things.

Finally don’t talk to me about the nutters that own PSG, they shouldn’t be considered ambassadors of rational thinking

We seem to be being linked with a few young south americans (Brazilians, Argentinians, Uruguayans). I hope Edu has some great contacts in that part of the world because it may be our best way forward and best way out of this mess we are in even though it's risky in the sense that they often need a lot of time to settle.

Although, it must be said, with our transfer budget we need magicians not managers or Directors of Football.

I think Emery should have made tactical changes earlier in the CL final, put an extra body into central midfield and taken off Özil. In the early days of his tenure he would probably have changed things at halftime but he seemed a bit lost and indecisive.

I thought the subs were okay ish.

It was a watershed moment for Özil. The horse has bolted. I understand why Emery would want to keep him on, highest paid player and capable when he’s in the mood of defence splitting passes. We haven’t got many like that in the squad. It’s over for him now, fans have turned on him

Ah, those were the days when people running proper businesses had an influence in the game, not the filthy rich of today. Actually Jack's buying of the title had many earlier precedents - my mind goes to Everton of the 60s, and there were others. As for splitting from tradition, the gravy train has many willing passengers - always will have.