You are assuming Europa is the easier competition.

4th is pretty much dead, but not because we’re reliant on others. More because we can’t win away- not even close.
Well probably get just 3 more point this season.
Need Man U to draw with Chelsea which puts Man U a point behind and Chelsea 2 points in front. Our game in hand would be Leicester away!

Despite Emery’s progress were miles away from where we need to be


New left back
New centre back
Better competition for Bellerin at right back
New midfielder (Ramsey)
2 new wide players


Massive summer ahead

All of the other sides left in the Europa cup are about 5th or so in their respective leagues. It's not going to be easy. I was surprised the Napoli tied went that easy. Even if we do win it, and if we win it collapsing in the league the rest of the way, it won't feel right. Maybe lifting a European trophy will change that feeling but right now, I feel we don't deserve it. That said, it would break my heart if we lost to Chelsea in the final, assuming both clubs go through.

Whole new defence really. Van Dijk turned Liverpool from awful to great. We need a signing like him who will organise on the pitch because no one else at the club on or off the field seems able to organise it

Not in the slightest. But it is still within our hands to determine. Obviously if results go our way this weekend and we beat Leicester and rivals lose, then priorities shift again.

Plus we would only have to play 1 ‘away’ game

If city win their last 3, and therefore win the title by a point having won their last 14 straight it will be phenomenal.

Teams have gone on long title winning runs but not under this sort of pressure.

The same goes for Liverpool if city drop points.

In addition to who we actually need to sign who we sell is equally as important.

I’d flog Xhaka, Mustafi and mhikitaryan in a heartbeat. They would all provide funds to reinvest

The blueprint for any future signing should be pace and power.

I think every single one of our players was weaker and slower than their opposite number today. Similar v palace.

Without pace and power we are reliant on perfect technique, passing, one touch, and brilliant off the ball movement. How many teams can do that and not need any pace or power!?

Let’s go back to a team of quick giants.

Few teams have mastered the Barca tippy tappy model, and even they had a genius and two of the best midfielders of all time in their side.

City are giving it a good go though.

The other issue in this squad is who gets the goals when times are tough in games.
Where are our players who help us counter and dribble the ball 50 yards, beat a man and curl it in the corner. I get those players are very special but every team in the top 6 and teams below have someone like that. We don’t.
Pace and power in desperate need

We definitely need to play with more pace and urgency, we are so slow and predictable.

Yep. We have no players who can conjure a worldclass individual goal out of nothing in the way a Hazard or Salah can.

I think tonight was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Tonight was cowardly and we don't deserve top four.

Wolves record v the top 6
W5 D4 L3
I’d take that v the other 5 and 7th

What has been our excuse all these years.

It used to be money. Now there are just well drilled, well run and well managed teams who prove year in and year out that whilst money helps you can certainly build a competitive team on a budget

Yep, and city are absolutely packed with pace
Walker, Mendy, Laporte, Sterling, Sane, aguero
Master dribblers
Sterling, Sane, Mahrez, Silva, b.silva, De Bruyne
And power
All 4 CB, Fernandinho, Walker, Mendy

Bernardo Silva has been quite brilliant this season, he’s been as good as De Bruyne was last and has replaced him perfectly.

More of the same bs we saw under Wenger.

It's not the manager.

#KroenkeOUT

We suck right now We suck like a Tijuana hooker. Trust me, I know.
We look like we couldn't beat eggs right now.

Emery and some of the new signings have given us moments of great optimism this season, some of the big homes games have been absolutely spot on. So much so that it’s gwmes like the last two weeks that it makes you realise what an absolute state this whole club was in when wenger left. Huge amounts of work to do, 5 year rebuilding project really.

Just wish emery had look at palace at home and wolves away and thought we should cement victory in the easier game rather than try to scrape wins in both. With hindsight he rested players for the wrong game

We’ve played 25 league away games since sanchez left and only won 6

Considered getting up early to watch this one. Glad I didn't. No point getting to CL because we'd have no chance of competing anyway and all it is doing is filling that hairpiece tosser's bank account.

Sell half this so called team in the summer. Particularly the Wenger children.

Emery then has one go to buy the players he wants and if Arsenal aren't greatly improved by Christmas then get rid of him.

We scored and had their keeper make 1 other save in 90 minutes. We conceded 3 for the second game running. Kos was involved in both and he was supposed to be part of our solution. We have an aging defence, a number of old forwards, two creative midfielders who are over or near 30 (Özil & Mkhitaryan) and a pile of players who were Wenger indoctrinated, many purchased for plain silly money. A keeper who is prone to moments of real poor play. If Ospina, Almunia had done this then he would have been criticised widely. I am yet to be convinced by Leno and indeed many have apparently forgotten some very ordinary goals conceded earlier in the season. Given Czech is about as mobile as me you can say we need a really good keeper for next season to be or challenge for number one.

May take sometime to turn the club around. I am not convinced Emery can do it. I feel as the season has progressed he has been indoctrinated to be more like Wenger himself. Our play is heading back to tippy tippy, players are never held responsible.

After the Everton game Man Utd chose to make the players and manager apologise. They got some reaction from their players in the City game but were beaten with at least having played well.

I await our reaction.

He was that disruptive player who wanted players to press the opposition & who wanted to win sometimes selfishly. Someone who you knew might just spark us with a piece of magic. Glad he moved on.

Really shocking how easily we capitulated when the season and CL football is on the line. Shocking. The way we played against the top 6 in recent months gave me a false sense of optimism.

We still have the same issues as before. Lack of testicular fortitude. I have to assume with the amount of research Emery has done to get the job he knows this as well as seeing it first hand.

To be fair, Alex Iwobi has contributed 3 or 4 times as many goals and assists this season & for not much more than a 10th of the wages, despite being one of the worst players in recent years for lacking end product.

Given that Alexis is costing Utd 500k a week for this total lack of impact, I'd say we got rid of him at the right time. The Alexis of 3 years ago would be a godsend however and would have us comfortably in third position.

Oh well, another disappointing game.

I am not saying that we could have afforded him. In fact Mourinho who wanted to piss off Man City by buying Sanchez made a big error. I hope Alexi stays with them until the very last day of his contract just to really annoy all the Man U supporters.

But my point, which may not have been obvious, was that he bought to the team some attributes that were not obvious at the time or were called by many disruptive. Those are the qualities that we are totally lacking and need to get a player of that quality, with a will to win, into the club.

What would you say if this offer was made to Man U regarding Alexis. We take him on loan for a year and pay him 50K per week (they have to pick up the rest). They may tell us to get nicked but if you don't ask you will never know. It would be a gamble but may very well cover the Wellbeck departure if they went for it. I want to see some strategic thinking about transfers. Some to get us over a hump and not have to panic long term buy.

Similar idea as I had the other day to get Fabergas back for a while. We have some youngsters who may or may not make it but having around some class to try and get them there could not hurt.

Of course the will to win cannot make up for the lack of defensive nous in our team, which IMO should be our main objective in the summer transfer. Since Mislinat left can anyone tell me who is doing this at the club.

Story about the only players to acknowledge the away support were Sokratis, Leno, Özil and Lacazette. And they want us to all get together as a club. Yeah right. The fact some of our young players did not acknowledge the fans is more than a little disappointing. Good on Leno for facing up. That is the attitude I want to see in a player.

https://metro.co.uk/2019/04/25/unai-eme ... t-9315323/

I don't think Emery addressed this appropriately when asked.

You look at the last 6 goals we’ve conceded:
Set piece no marking free header
Long ball, don’t win the header, gift a free run to the attacker
Set piece no marking free header
Direct set piece
Set piece no marking free header awful gk
No challenge run clean through the defence awful gk

Every single one with aN individual mistake. How many free headers do Liverpool, spurs, city give away in their box? They may lose a header but they are marking and challenging. Our boys don’t want to get engaged in that physical battle

Saw this stat on Twitter
Arsenal’s record in the away league table

10/11 1st
11/12 3rd
12/13 2nd
13/14 2nd
14/15 3rd
15/16 3rd
16/17 6th
17/18 10th
18/19 10th (2 games to play)

This is a new problem.

To be a threat away from home you need to be able to counter attack at pace. How often to we bemoan teams who come to the emirates and sit deep with 10 men? Well away from home they don’t do that but we have no pace to expose the weaker defenders who are left with less protection.
In the last 2-3 years we lost a huge amount of pace and width from the team. Until we get both back we’ll never be better than 6th

Just look at the players and search your heart.

If you need to go away from home and desperately get a win players like Xhaka, Iwobi and Mhikitaryan aren’t your men. Let’s be honest now no mucking about. There’s just too much mediocrity there and Özil and the 2 strikers can only get you out of trouble so many times. There’s just not enough match winners in that team.

There’s not enough talent in the squad of the right quality to do well (Bellerin,sokratis,Torreira, Aubameyang, Lacazette, Guendozi, only) in the champions league anyway. Like somebody said it would only be preferential for financial reasons.

It’s like a flat circle with arsenal and we are almost back at where we were a month into the season where we realised we were reliant on a handful of players.

Wide players are critical for any team that aspires to be successful. Every title winning side has them in abundance. Look how many city have, foden sterling, bernardo etc

It was a massive mistake going into the season without one and in my opinion we need 2 to get to rotate.

I agree with that, TG. I would probably add AMN to the bunch, I think he has potential although probably not as a RB.

However, this club does not have the balls to undertake the kind of mass clear-out needed. Too much mediocrity on too high wages makes it incredibly difficult to offload them but it can be done if you have the right people doing it.

If we don't get CL and have a very limited budget it will be difficult to attract the calibre of player we require as well.

It's a bit of a mess really.

We seem to be stuck between two stools when playing away. At home we generally go very attacking, in some off the best games this has been all out attack, high tempo, high press from kick off and by and large it has been successful.
Away from home the instincts are we can’t be as attacking, but we also don’t want to sit back. So we try to control the play with slow possession and fall in to counter attacking traps.
I’d rather we did one extreme or the other away from home. If we’re facing a bottom half team, front foot attack and pick a team to do so. If we’re facing a strong side then sit back and pick a team to counter attack, invite them on and break - just like the spurs game which on the balance of the game we were actually quite comfortable defending so deep - much like wolves were v us last night.

Those performances aren’t the norm as sadly I don’t think Emery has the players to go all out attack or deep defence/counter when we play away from home.

And all totally avoidable. Even ignoring the poor quality of players we’ve signed all we had to do was be more sensible and swallow our pride with the players we sell.
Missing out on huge sums for the likes of Sanchez and Ramsey is awful. Not getting proper fees for so many other players adds to it. We’ve lost maybe £250m from poor management of player contracts and sales I reckon.

Disagree. We are one point behind Chelsea and two ahead of United and they still have to play each other. If we throw in the towel now and simple concede the superiority of Leicester and Burnley, I simply don't know what to think. We need to turn it around BEFORE the semifinal or we are likely to cave in there too.

We blew it after the palace game and I wrote it off in my mind. I don’t expect us to get 3 points at Leicester at all and even if we did it’s well within us to blow it v Brighton.

Therefore it’s Europe and hopefully a final againest Chelsea where anything could happen.

In Arsene and Gazidis last 2 seasons they failed to sort out the contracts for Ramsey and Sanchez and then failed to sell them whilst spending best part of 100 million on perez, el Nenny, Xhaka and Mustafi.

There’s your 200 million mate.

Frankly disasterous business decisions. Proper brexity and something we will be paying for some time.

Another issue is we don’t have the understanding and business savvy at the club to undertake a massive clear out and attain the players we need. No Mislintat now just Sanelhi and some chartered accountant.

I don’t expect the Miracle change to occur this summer soc. It would require some extreme business management and massive BALLS to tell certain players who aren’t delivering and on massive money they HAVE to be moved on or will simply languish on the bench.

Kroenke needs to do something like re prioritise budget and cash to give Emery an injection of funds to rebuild or Emery’s tenure will be pointless. I don’t expect this to happen and think we will be getting a combination of Kroenke out protests and people giving Emery grief next season. Simply left it too late to get rid of Wenger and so much damage was done.