It’s not just the stats though is it. The stats simply reflect the quality, or lack thereof, of our play. It’s not like we’re unlucky. We get what we deserve. I’m going back nearly 50 years to recall anything quite as awful served up for our delectation.

I think Xhaka needs to go back in central midfield and get Cédric back at left back, or even play Gabriel there.
Xhaka works when teams play narrow or have no pace out wide - which is basically not that many teams or only the very very poor teams

That’s like saying a deckchair on the Titanic was the wrong colour. True but not really the main problem.

I think our season rests on the fitness of Lacazette and Aubameyang.

I just don't see us getting past the semi with either Nketiah (who actually played well today) or Martinelli up top, as neither are really quipped for that role in a team wanting to win the EL and set up the way we are. Not their fault, and neither is the fact that we create very few chances and don't play to their strengths. Unless of course Villareal are completely useless.

Once again I ask why Areta does not give his subs longer to influence the game. Give them half an hour. Gabbi had about 2 touches and Ødegaard took a while to get into the game.

When you look at the still of the var for our offside I’m not even sure they’ve stopped the video at the point of the pass. On the still image the ball isn’t a perfect circle, it is spread out because of the lack of quality in the technology being unable to capture as many frames of action per second as it needs to.
It is total guesswork and we’ve fallen on the wrong side of it too often.

The only close var call in our favour this year was that Mginn offside before villa scored their first when they beat us 3-0. We’ve had double figures go against us

True but then there’s no point ignoring it just because it isn’t our biggest problem. We can fix that easily. Our biggest problems are a lot harder to fix

I don’t think Lacazette or Aubameyang will be fit for Thursday. Even if Aubameyang feels
Ok he’s been laid up in bed with malaria, has apparently lost a lot of weight and will almost certainly take some time to get back up to full fitness.

Martinelli has to start up front on Thursday.

And to finish up for the evening, with the way we play we leave ourselves completely susceptible to losing a game by a single error by player of ref.
The annoying thing is plenty of teams in mid and lower table are exactly the same but tend to get beaten not by such clear game changing errors

I think we need to disregard the VAR robbery. Players and managers use this as an excuse. The fact remains we regularly fail to create enough chances and our chances often are not of high quality.

Good teams, create numerous chances and often clear chances are not as scarce as at Arsenal.

Arteta still wants players to play with the hand brake on. His failure to even try Martenelli at CF, let alone give him an extended run is simply inexplicable, until you realise that Arteta is a control freak who cannot change his mind. I honestly believe S-R and Saka would never have been playing forward if Willian and others were not COVID restricted and he had no choice against Chelsea.

If you remain risk adverse you cannot progress.

There are 2 issues with the club: some players not trying or lacking quality and a manager not good enough or confident enough to take progressive risks.

We’re not a good enough team to create those chances with the players we have. There is a lack of quality and depth right through the squad.
So a lot of our games are going to be tight affairs. The trouble we’re having is making sure we come out on top in more of these tight affairs. We’re gifting tight games to opponents who don’t deserve it. I’m struggling to think of many tight games where we just nicked it but really there was little between the teams on the day.
Brighton away 1-0 maybe, but that was our one moment of quality rather than a gift from Brighton. Maybe West Ham at home, 2-1 as West Ham were ok that day, but we had them penned in at the end. Even beating Man U 1-0 away was a good performance where we deserved the win on chances and all round play. We just aren’t converting these tight games in to wins

Unfortunately, I've always said we are likely no better than 9th and that we should be more wary of Leeds than Everton. On the positive side, I like the effort. We were positive. Had we had all our available players the result would have been different I feel.

I'm as confident about the Europa Cup either.

Do you think we use the right tactics in some of these games. This is why I say Arteta often gets them to play with such restrictive instructions I am not sure if the players are as lacking as you say. The squad we have and our results do not match up.

Barring a great amount of luck and putting together 3 consecutive performances, the planets align, we'll likely end up 9th at best, maybe 10th and nothing next season other than domestic football.

Okay, then what? What should we do over the summer?

I think you spelled defecation wrong.

No I don’t think the tactics are right. The physical set up is ok, apart from a player or two here and there most of us would likely be picking the same players but the thing I want to change is the tempo. I think against Chelsea we were 3-0 up at half time and had easily our worst passing accuracy of the season.
But in terms of things like comedy individual errors costing us games, be that red cards, penalties, own goals, terrible mistakes, or even guilt edge chances not being taken then the quality of the players is not good enough. We have a group of players where too many of them will make some sort of mistake that will cost us a game at least 3-4 times a season, if you’ve got 6-7 players all doing that and rotating their mistakes then you’re losing a lot of games.

Yes, you are correct too many of our players have errors in them. But even the fans seem to tolerate them. Luiz is the classic example but there are many others and they are not the young kids who you can forgive. It comes from the top. But Arteta is inconsistent in how he deals with poor games. Pépé, Martenelli and even players like Holding are punished after a bad performance but Willian, Aubameyang and Luiz can be *%^@ for a number of games and not suffer. The club and manager are both culpulable

We are a steaming pile of manure aren't we.

There also seems an arbitrary period for how far back in play var goes to find an offside. The ball went down the left to Pépé, couple more passes and it went to the other side of the pitch to chambers who crossed it deep it came off Pépé and then cellabos was fouled. It was 18 seconds between the offside and the foul.
Far too often it feels like var is doing absolutely anything they can to take goals and penalties off us.

VAR is but only one element which contributed to our defeat. Arteta, please focus on the footballing aspects which you must improve for the team. We are not creating enough clear-cur chances. Coach Partey to stop passing inaccurately, and shoot accurately. Xhaka has improved a lot, but please play Cédric at left-back. Play Martinelli from the onset. Make tactical changes when things are not going for us. Be more decisive with your substitutions, make them early. Stop playing conservatively. And give Leno more kicking practices.

Hi g7,

I think you have summed things up perfectly.

Partey is a very gifted player but he doesn't half hit a lot of wayward passes and his shooting......well, the less said the better!

Spot-on with this bit....."Make tactical changes when things are not going for us. Be more decisive with your substitutions, make them early. Stop playing conservatively"

Where do we go from here?

Well. I think last year we needed to turn over at least 2/3rds of this squad and every replacement player needed to be top class.
So we’ve got rid of the time wasters even if we had to pay them off. We’ve got decisions to be made on at least 8 or so first team players.
This is a long long process for us. The current squad is nowhere near good enough. It may be that Arteta doesn’t survive the full rebuild.

For me it always felt like we would have to wait for each transfer window to try to incrementally improve the team that we’d allowed to degenerate far too easily.
That’s not to say that I was expecting or accept the performances we’ve put in in between those transfer windows.

Games like last night go right to the top of frustrating performances over the last 18 months. Games we should win, don’t look in any trouble of losing but somehow contrive to lose it. Mari and Holding had everton in their pocket all game.

Id be very interested to find out the level of confidence the club has in Arteta. I'd love to know on a 10 point scale, what number the club would place with regards to their faith and confidence in him.

I just optimised the Php Tables so the forum should perform faster now.

Willock scores again for Newcastle. 3 in 3 games
Got them a point at Anfield.

What a signing he's been for them. His goals alone have won them 6-7 points I think. He has a knack of arriving in the box at the right time.

I have only seen him cut it for us in Europa league level, I don't think he's a 10 if you're trying to break teams down, and I'm not sure he works as one of the 2 in a double pivot. His best role is actually as an attacking midfielder in a team who naturally don't have too much of the ball so he can arrive late in the box on counter attacks. I'm torn on him with us.

Either way his current form is great news for us. He either comes back as an improved player and full of confidence or we sell with his price at an all time high. His late goals recently push his price over £20m for me easily!

Rich...I remember him having a very good game at Liverpool in the Carabao Cup a couple of years ago when he scored a blinder. I thought he had great potential but he never reached the heights of a Saka or even Emile Smith Rowe. He’s still young though and this experience at Newcastle may bring him on.
Either way the club have decisions to make about him Nketiah, Nelson and AMN. There’s probably close to 70 odd million there which with money for Torreira and Guandouzi could allow us to strengthen This could also be impacted if the club/MA think that we’ve got better in the wings....Balogun and Azeez for example
I worry that Nketiah could go elsewhere and turn out an Andrew Cole!

I think all 4 could have decent EPL careers so good luck to them.

Pivotal off season all the way around. Ceballos and Odegard are loanees Bellerin seems to be on his way as does Luiz. Salibas future Tierneys proneness to injuries Lacazette and Aubameyang etc. Man there’s a lot to do!

I was totally neutral on the Leno/Emi situation at the time. Didn’t concern me too much that we let Martinez go as in Leno we had a very good keeper. I have to say I’ve revised my view. Leno has been wobbly for a little while now and doesn’t appear to have the confidence of the defence. Martinez bought more calm to the team when he played and has done to Villa too. It wouldn’t bother me if Leno moved on in the summer. Good but not a great keeper. Obviously hindsight is everything here.

Sadly, I'm beginning to doubt Arteta. He cannot say he does not have the players anymore. Those he did not rate, have left or are on loan. In comes Gabriel & Partey. Gabriel is supposed to be a big upgrade to those who have left. But he continues to make an error here and there. When will Arteta coach him out of it? Ditto Partey.

Emile Smith Rowe was a surprise package for him. It is a huge bonus for him & the team. Together with Saka, they have given him something he did not have with Özil. But he is unable to build on it.

The number of stray passes is astonishing. Does he review these critically with the team, and ask them why the passes go astray? After so many games and so many stray balls, he needs to get the team to understand each other. Who am I passing it to, and where?

Leno's goal kick is terrible. So many has gone straight out. Why is this still in his game?

7 home defeats is a statistic, is a fact, is a joke.

Willian could be going to MLS side LA Galaxy this summer.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.caught ... llian/amp/

For me, I would have preferred Martinez. But that is not to say I didn't rate Leno. Between the 2, I would have chosen Martinez.

Please let it be true. Willian did have good games for us recently. But in the overall context of things, he is better out of Arsenal.

I hope Arteta let him be in the team/squad next season. I rated him then, and had touted him as the next Vieira. Well, I was wrong when he regressed terribly. Hope he comes back and get as close as a "Vieira" as possible.

It was a massive cock up but the guy gets a lot of shots smashed at him. It’s very hard to judge. There’s problems all over the shop.

Let’s face it Kieran Tierney puts the winger out of touch instead of Xhaka and that wasn’t happening

He’s a ridiculous retirement signing. Type of thing spurs would do in the 90s

Just my view but I think the average Arsenal has no patience when it comes to young players. If the player isn't a prodigy from the start (I'm being over the top) then he's not good enough. Players need a run of games, quality minutes. Being thrown in when we are desperate for a point and being told they didn't do much is not fair. Expecting them to replicate their reserve team matches in the PL right away is not fair.

I wasn't around for the youth players in our club in the old days but I'd be surprised if they weren't given a bit more time, shown a bit more patience.

As for Willian we rolled the dice and lost. He looked next to a sure thing. It didn't happen, not even close. Pépé hasn't come close to justifying his price tag. He is still a decent if not good player and the question is do we accept he may not progress a lot more than he is now or sell him and try and get as much as we can for him and try again?

Maritinelli, Saliba, one or two others...one has to wonder what the hell is going on. Does Arteta and the club know something we don't? Because we can't see it.

Yes Xhaka diving in was unnecessary but I’d only apportion about 5% of blame for that goal at him.
Time to get full backs at full back and Xhaka back in midfield.

The lack of natural full backs is killing our game. Desperately need a right back this summer and back up for Tierney. Modern full backs for top teams really add something, they have the stamina and pace expected of old fashioned full backs but the best ones now have the technique of central midfield players.

I was really impressed by Martinez in the short period he was our number one but I always thought it was a very small sample size to confidently sell a very decent Leno. Unfortunately Leno has wobbled recently and the doubts are creeping in.

Also, do we think the owner of Spotify would have tweeted his interest in bidding for Arsenal yesterday if there was no Arsenal protest? I quite liked the idea that at the very least there should be an anti-KSE protest every season.

Saw a fan poll on Twitter.
Would you rather:
Win the Europa but Kronke stays, or
Lose Europa final and Kronke leaves?

Obviously it would be nice to have a caveat that any new owner would heavily invest but you can’t have that.
I want Arsenal to win at all times and winning Europa this year would be absolutely huge and a massive jump forward in our ambition back to the top of only for the guaranteed money it would bring.