Thiago was brilliant for Bayern - but we can only judge his success at Liverpool by what we've seen of him there - and it has been average at best. I think there was a piece Wenger did on the balance of Liverpool's midfield being based on high tempo, few touches, break up and get it forward. That isn't what Thiago does, he's a deep lying conductor. I read someone say that when he signed there seemed to be a clear consensus that his signing was one of few foreign signings you could bet your house on was going to be a success - much like Veron!

Big signings have been very good - but their challenge is to keep that going with no mistakes - it will be very hard to do and given the age profile of the team and failure of those signed to replace those players so far means that a lot of these problems might come at once, so rather than gradually replacing 1-2 players each year they might find themselves having to turn over half the team. It was a big problem for the Invincibles as well who broke up very quickly for a variety of reasons.

Most weeks it seems there is another error by a high profile GK. I often see goals which aren't a clear gk error but could easily be avoided with a more aggressive GK rather than the pass-the-buck style that so many GK have by sticking religiously to their goal line. De Gea is the best at this. Stays on his line and then tries to pull of a wonder save, looks great when he does it but for my money anything in the 6 yard box and between the width of the goal posts has to be the GK ball every time.
Lloris was massively at fault for the first west ham goal for me, he came and panicked and ran back to his line, the ball bounced inside the 6 yard box - he should have been out and dominated the situation.
A GK who is incredibly consistent and flies under the radar is Schmeichel at Leicester. This season, Ederson, Schmeichel, Leno and Martinez have been the best GK in the league for me.

For the last couple months I stopped watching a lot of football. I barely got up the energy to watch us but even then I did so halfheartedly. Didn't pay too much attention of what was happening around the league, despite still posting a fair amount of posts on here.

I was so out of football, City's run went unnoticed. Now I'm worried. Had no idea of their run. Barely watched us and even skipped some Europa games of ours which I'd never have done before. This season, there isn't anyone to really stop City it seems. Liverpool is underwhelming, the rest of the top are decent enough but no where near City from what I'm seeing now. In fact, I'd say Leicester is probably the 2nd best team out there from the limited amount of football I've seen. But that's just from casual observation. City have West Ham, Wolves and Man Utd coming up, and any of them could nick a point off them and as we know anything could and does happen in football, a win by any of those opponents wouldn't be a complete shock to most.

That said, they could run the table I fear. This could be their year for the CL

Not sure what you're worried about AG, pretty certain we're not catching City even if they lose form

...finding out about City's run is depressing.

As for us, our 'project' is only as promising as Kroenke's mood. So, I'd temper any optimistic ambitions based on that fact. The Glazers take a dividend out of the club, which isn't a common thing but they can't be accused of not opening up their wallets. They may see Man Utd as the same as Tesla stock but they are smart enough to know that revenue is tied to success on the pitch.

I hope Glazer would drop that bit of advice to Kroenke at the next NFL owner's meeting.

Well, just an opinion. No need to get all worked up because we differ. Chill!

I concur that Arteta is too conservative, not just for substitutions, but in his tactics. I'm losing confidence in him.

I'm the opposite generally. Whilst I do agree he is risk-averse in certain situations, I think we're on the right track with Arteta. It's a long term job (I *%^@*** hate the term "project"). It's worth sticking with it because we're comfortably a mid-table team at present and no one is going to change that overnight. As others have said, Raul was a disaster, Gazidis jumped ship at the first opportunity, Huss Famy was not up to it etc. This feels like progress to me, albeit one that will take time to develop. It might end up being another false dawn, but I do think we're appearing to make the right moves to clearing up the mess that has been around for some time.

If we're going to legitimately criticise him for being too conservative then we also need to consider the times he has gone on the front foot and got it right. Chelsea at home we went for them with high tempo football and stormed in to a 3-0 lead. Similarly against Leeds, very much a high press to really pressurise Leeds. His tactics helped win both games.

My view with Arteta is not necessarily judging every decision he makes but looking longer term and seeing if he is not continually making the same mistakes and to see if he is evolving in to a better manager. I've said before that hiring Arteta was like sticking a 17 year old up front and relying on him for your goals all season - but also hoping that in a few years as his game evolves he turns in to a lethal striker. He is going to have bad games and he's going to make mistakes but if we think long term he is the right man to see us through and out the other side of this transition/rebuild then we need to have some patience and perspective.
From what I've heard his 'coaching' on the training pitch is excellent - it makes sense as that is where he made his name. There will be lots of managerial qualities he needs to improve and timing of substitutions may be one but lets see how it goes.

The thought of Spurs fans wrestling with the dilemma of sacking Jose with a £30m payout or having to stick with him fills me with joy.
Ironically, of all the seasons that Son and Kane might actually want to leave Spurs this might be the season that they can't simply because no one will be able to afford the fee. Will anyone pay £100m for Kane when Haaland is available for less and Mbappe for potentially similar fee. Both are better and 8 years younger

Thanks Darren, for putting it in perspective. I just hope Arteta puts more faith in the Saka-ESR partnership. And make a quick call on Aubameyang, who is not the same player he used to be. Was hoping Leeds wasn't a "flash in a pan" performance from him. Against City, he was too easily checked by the City defenders. Ødegaard was too conservative last night, and passed back more than he moved forward with the ball. Wonder if it was Arteta's instructions?

Thanks Rich, like the additional perspective of Arteta. Sometimes I like to put it out there and hear differing views. My "voice" may sound absolute, but I certainly know I am not the best judge of tactics and the likes.

I don’t get this point about conservative substitutions. Yesterday he brought on ceballos, Lacazette and smith Rowe. Is the suggestion that was wrong ?

What did people want him to do bring on a striker and take off a defender?

Every game he doesn’t bring on Martinelli he seems to get stick for it but that player is just as off form as Willian.

I really don’t understand what people are expecting, as we pointed out last week in the big games under Wenger we were getting our arses podgered relentlessly without lube and at that time we longed for a different approach to our ridiculous gung ho brand of football that let our enemies score 5 or 6 againest us.

Now we have that and Arteta has got a reasonably solid back 4 in place and a stellar defensive record is starting to form but now the accusation is we are too conservative. It’s just silly.

The other thing about City and Pep that I admire is how little fuss they made of their poor season last year and poor start this year. They are wise enough to know that even the best don't win every match and win the league every year (unless its a really poor league). City know what they have got and know not to abandon a long term project because of a bad patch of form.

Arteta began to look a little bit like he was getting rattled when we were having our terrible run. However, the way he responded to that, most notably in the Chelsea game, gives me considerable optimism that he is growing into the job. He has a plan on how he wants the team to play and is intent on building towards that. One also senses we are not going to buy players unless they are exactly right. Sure, our results are still patchy, but that is exactly what I expected this season.

Since Christmas Arsenal have:

2nd best defence in the league.
3rd most goals per game.
5th best points per game.

A lot of that missing Partey and Tierney. There have been improvements. Even in those two games we lost against villa and wolves were worlds apart from when we lost to them both at home, we deserved nothing from those home games but deserved much more from the away games.

Reading more rumours linking Bellerin with a move away from the club in the summer. Barcelona and PSG linked, if we can get a fee of £25m or so we should definitely sanction the move. I think there are a vast number of right-backs in just the prem who suit our game. And with that sort of money I think you could find a right footed Tierney.

https://www.planetfootball.com/quizzes/ ... t-arsenal/

If you've got some time to kill take on this Arsenal quiz. 99/126 to beat

Its also worth noting that last season they had an incredible run with injuries. Van Djik, Salah, Mané, TAA, Robertson, Fabinho barely missed a game. This season they are probably closer to a normal season injury wise and they are struggling.

Its his first ever management role and he is learning on the job with a disjointed side. Losing confidence in him 1 year into the job is crazy.

Totally agree, give the guy a break for God’s sake. The results aren’t great but since Christmas we’ve improved significantly.

People are essentially advocating sacking George Graham before he had the chance to rebuild and move out Nicholas and sansom for smith, bould and Dixon.

He needs transfer windows and the opportunity to restructure his squad.

Yeah, they've had a couple of seasons where they've been incredibly lucky with injuries. That has turned around big time this season though, losing their three best central defenders for most of the season is a huge blow.

Going back to the point about big signings, we're still a little hit and miss in the post-Wenger era. Of the seven players we've signed for 20m or more I would put Leno, Partey, Tierney and Gabriel in the good category, they all look like they could be cornerstone pieces in the team we're trying to build. Torreira has to be labeled a flop considering the money we spent, and the jury's still out on Pépé and Saliba (though at this point they're probably leaning slightly more towards bad than good). Think we have a very important summer coming up, where we have to make sure the players coming in are of the right quality.

And if players flop we need to be decisive. Sell Torreira for anything over £20m. For that price you can buy a central midfielder far more suited to the league.
Realistically any young player we sign for £20-25m and on a long ish contract we shouldn’t have too much trouble getting most of our money back if they don’t quite fit. When we spend £70m on a player it simply has to work or the sell on value is half at best

You can't honestly think we gave that game our best shot yesterday (excuse the pun). We were losing 1-0 and I don't think we registered a shot on target second half.

It was a dismal performance, akin to rolling over and having our tummies tickled. Players who couldn't wait for the game to be over and were just glad to get out of there without a tonking.

Arsenal are a massive club, one of the biggest names in world football and that lack of ambition in a game that is still 1-0 is just unacceptable.

As Hazuki said, the only players who looked like they believed we could get something out of the game were Tierney and Saka. I give Holding an honorable mention, despite his error for the goal, as at least it looked like it meant something to him.

Aubameyang, who genuinely has been one of the clubs greatest goalscorers and has gotten us out of jail on numerous occasions, was abysmal. He could barely trap a back of cement. If Willian had dropped that kind of performance the internet would have exploded.

My point was about subs not the performance

However I think the game wasn’t good but what were you expecting ?

They have better players than us in almost every position bar one and our most important player wasn’t on the pitch yesterday so we just couldn’t hurt them at all.

They had 6 or 7 players sat on their subs bench who probably walk straight into our first 11 !

2Walker
9Gabriel Jesus
10Agüero
13Steffen
14Laporte
16Rodri
21Torres
22Mendy
47Foden

We aren’t going to turn them over every time we play them mate it’s as simple as that. It wasn’t a great performance but we know this one wasn’t our battle.

Your expectations are off the chart given where we are right now.

If Arsenal really went for it in the second half and conceded another 2-3 goals Arteta would get hammered for another big defeat against a top side. The size of Arsenal as a club is not really relevant as it does not influence the players that Arteta can put on the pitch. Man City have a talented, settled and well drilled group of players and looking at the two sides there aren't many Arsenal players that would get a look in at Man City. The only 3 that would be in the mix would be Saka, Tierney and Aubameyang, unsurprisingly 2 of those 3 are the ones you noted looked confident coming up against City.

Comparing Aubameyang and Willian is a fairly pointless exercise. One player has basically carried the team for the past 2 years while the other has put in one good performance sine arriving. Aubameyang has plenty of credit in the bank and should be given the opportunity to play himself into some form.

Sounds like some of our problems aren't skill but what its been for a long time: belief, committment, etc.
We have lacked the intangibles squad wise consistently for a while. We have gotten up for some games but no where near to being consistent. We don't have that terrier about us that is needed.

So far Pépé is a flop in my humble opinion. No team would pay 70 million going by his performances for us. Would they even pay 35 million? Based on his performances, he's in the 20s. I'm not saying sell him right now. Its too early but if we don't get anywhere close to what we thought we were buying in the not too distant future, may as well cut our losses. Willian is on the tail end of his career. Not much we can do about him. Elneny needs to be sold, we can use those wages elsewhere. Xhaka is a tough guy, seems to be a leader in the dressing room, but his skill doesn't come close to his desire. He's 28. His sale price will drop considerably in a year or two.

I would still like to see a run of matches with Gabriel, Partey, Aubameyang as a spine with Martinelli as well or off the bench. Holding/Gabriel, Partey, Smith-Rowe, Saka, Tierney, Aubameyang, Ødegaard perhaps, Bellerin, Leno, Pépé, others, when healthy we have a decent squad seems to just need a run of games together.

The way the season has been played, no fans, no transfer money and condensed games the teams who were going to fare well were those with settled squads and managers, those who needed little time on the training pitch because patterns of play are ingrained, and of course those with the biggest squads and those who suffer the fewest injuries.
West Ham and Villa have both done very well in this respect. Both have had very settled 1st 11's, barely an injury to speak of but they aren't 11's who have played together for long periods of time, both managers deserve credit for knitting them together so well.
City and Liverpool have the most settled squads and managers in the league. City have world class replacements and squad depth, Liverpool don't and Liverpool have had injuries.
Man U have a very deep squad but very few injuries to note - especially to key players.

Then you come to Arsenal - unsettled squad, needed a lot more surgery in the summer that proved difficult with covid, new manager trying to get over his ideas with little time on the training pitch and next to no pre-season and some key injuries to some of our most important players.

We should probably be higher up the league than we are and some results have been very poor but this is a very strange season and one that really couldn't have been timed worse from our perspective.

So basically everytime we play a big team at home we should just take a 1-0 defeat and move on?

Teams take points off better teams than them every week in the PL. We caused them issues for a 15 min period just before half-time but after half-time we just let the game drift, City didn't even half to get out of first gear and we didn't even have a shot on target. That's not having a go, that's just raising the white flag.

City are an accomplished side who managed the game very well but at 1-0 with 20 mins to play you have to have a go. Even the best teams get nervy when there's only one goal in it but we created next to nothing and offered no real threat at all in the latter stages.

We have done some good off-field things in January in getting rid of some of the deadwood and their exorbitant wages (albeit having to sacrifice transfer fees to do so) but we have to drive home the benefits of that by bringing in better players to replace them in the summer, and not just one or two either.

Arteta has to be accountable, like every other manager of an elite football club. Yes, he needs time but by the same token there have to be tangible signs of progress. We have improved in recent weeks but if we get booted out of the EL and finish 10th in the league then questions have to be asked, and rightly so.
I am not one of those who wants to see Arteta gone as I think another managerial merry-go-round could be problematical but, that said, he needs to start showing he deserves the trust. He is a bright young manager but this is Arsenal football club and standards must be set and must be adhered to.

Ridiculous post

Your simply viewing everything with blinkers saying this isn't good enough. Your also deliberately ignoring that Arteta beat city and chelsea to the fa cup last year with some very astute back to the walls wins. One would presume this would have bought the manager some good will but maybe not.

On any given sunday Arteta has probably 4 or 5 players who can regularly perform to the standard we need. Its simply not enough if we want to do better. He's had some bad luck with refs and injuries and the league table is probably a slight anomaly and we should actually be 7 or 8th rather than 10th but trust me we aint better than that right now.

For me no questions even if he finishes 10th and doesn't win the EL (which is more a problem for us than a benefit) . If you couldn't see this coming then you must be blind or in a coma. This is years in the making

You’ve essentially got El Nenny and Xhaka up againest Gundogan, Fernandinho and de bruyne. Does it even warrant explanation. Get a grip people

That's bollocks mate, his is Arsenal football club not the effing Dog and Duck.

Your essentially sticking your head in the sand and ignoring any of the circumstances.

Prepare to get more frustrated for the rest of the season.

But surely there's a middle ground between going all out to score and being too conservative? Looking at the result in retrospect, it's of course fair enough to simply say City are much better than us and we can't expect to get anything from the game. But whenever you go a full 90 minutes without troubling the opposing keeper, you have to say it hasn't been a good enough attacking performance, no matter who your opponent is.

One thing to consider is that the team were perhaps a bit knackered. A lot of them played in Italy on Thursday, there hasn't been that much rotation in the attacking positions and they spent a lot of the City game chasing City players. A lack of a crowd to give that oomph for a rousing finish. City also manage the game really well.

I think the wider issue is our lack of late goals in any games this season, only 2 goals beyond the 75th minute. Are the players not as fit as they should be. Wasn't there occasions when Arteta first took over when he had us running far more in the game and we were out on our feet after 60 minutes.

We also don't have that option in the team to go more direct. A giroud type striker who you can go long to and feed off.

There is plenty of work to do but I'm far more upset with our performances in other defeats this season than an inability to lay a glove on City in a last 20 minute hail mary

Whilst I agree that Arteta deserves credit for the wins against City and Chelsea, how are you defining back to the wall for the Chelsea final? As dec has pointed out to you, after Chelsea’s bright start and early goal, we were comfortably the better team for the rest of the game.

As I say, Arteta deserves credit for that. But there’s no way I think the Chelsea final can be called backs to the wall.

Any successful team needs a good defence as a starting point, and somewhat against expectations we seem to be going in the right direction in that respect. It can't be denied our attack has been our weakness - in 25 league games only 31 goals scored. We have failed to score in 10 games and in 7 games hit the net no more than once. But then 24 goals scored in eight! A very unbalanced output. We obviously have talent going forward, but too inconsistent.

It might be a bit early to say a season of two halves but the moment Smith-Rowe came in to the team vs Chelsea was a turning point. Up to then we scored 12 goals in 14 games. Since then we have 19 goals in 11 games. That extrapolates to 65 goals in a season, still probably not enough for top 4 but certainly getting closer.

In defence it was 18 goals conceded in 14 before Chelsea and is 8 goals conceded in 11 games - which is 27 across the season which is really excellent (the invincibles conceded 26)

Very broadly speaking Top 4 needs an average of 2 points per game, 2 goals per game and 1 goal against per game.

Yes - strangely we have had only one league game in which we scored two goals. We need more of those - two often wins a game. Bit like snooker player who consistently hit breaks of 60-70. When Mbappe joins in the summer he could improve things...