True - though Napoli were cruising through games against most opponents in Italy and last season set a higher points total than Arsenal every have despite being runners up. Just have to hope the team is better in a technical battle than it has been in physical ones.

Don't you rate Hector or Lacazette?

Hi mate,

Sorry to hear that you've been unwell. Sounds like a nightmare. I hope you are on the mend.

I expect every time those nurses bent over your blood pressure went through the roof so it was impossible to discharge you from hospital.

Some good news, though, in your absence I have taken Bernard under my wing and educated him about what makes a great defender and he is finally ready to admit that Mertesacker was a big useless lump.

We’re two goals conceded away from our worst ever defensive show in a PL season. Our away form is still disgraceful. Not seeing any tangible improvement imo. I wasn’t expecting miracles but when you see how quickly some managers can make a difference you do have to wonder about whether Emery is the guy. Give him the summer and then let’s see where we are by Christmas. The owner is a problem, we still have no technical director and haven’t replaced Sven either. We are a *%^@*** mess.

Emery will only be here short term I think. He’s a transitional manager for us imo.

Could it be that the the summer transfer window will be just as important in determining that Emery was the right man as much as his results and tactics? By that I don’t mean necessarily which players he signs because there are still factors out of his control - it’s more which players he dumps. What will he do with mustafi, Özil, Mkhitaryan, Xhaka, Kolasinac, Iwobi. And also look at the make up of the players bought in in terms of their character.

Right now I just want to see a change in attitude. I’m fed up of being out fought by less talented teams who just work harder than us. It isn’t as simple as bringing in a few players with good attitudes, it is the whole ethos of the club, the club needs to be shaken out of the over tolerant and lack of responsibility status that went through every aspect of the club for the past 6-8 years. Emery can’t do that over night but if he and the others in charge can get rid of everything still reeking of the old regime and being in leaders ready to excel with the new set of player standards slowly but surely we can turn the club around. All that needs to happen before we can even begin to think about having a team capable of title challenges

I know his pidgin english does not help and things are lost in translation but I see his interviews and have no idea of the message he is trying to get across. It sounds like a load of gibberish and his team plays like it.

The summer needs to be one of ruthless surgical excision. I am not sure we have the people with the bottle or the capability to undertake what is needed.

Quite agree.

I get all that but do you not look at the team though and think any manager would struggle with our current lot.

I think Darren could be right and he’s literally our David Moyes. It will take 1 or 2 rotations of managers before our fans accept our situation. The players just aren’t there soc.

What happens if we lose to Chelsea in the final and finish behind them in 5th but ahead of Utd? Effectively means they'll have qualified for the Champions League twice, and we'd be next in line via both competitions?

Very good question, I was wondering that myself.

There was a story yesterday that he wants to make Arsenal the best club in England and the world so his ambitions are clearly pretty lofty

Good luck with that one.

Maybe we could get Guardiola If we just don’t tell him he’s only got 40 million to spend he might take the job.

Wouldn't we just go into the Europa League next season? Chelsea would have got into the Champions League via a top four finish and winning the Europa League. But so would either Liverpool or Tottenham if they finish in the top four and one of them wins the Champions League.

Herein lies the problem Niall

My biggest beef with Emery .... okay he inherited a Wenger team but he has allowed this f***&^%% soft cock ring a ring a rosy at the back to continue ..... of course adventurous passes go astray when you spend the majority of your time making 'safe' passes to unmarked team mates five metres away .

Never mind personnel ... he's had a whole year to eradicate that trait .


We have a tendency to focus on any injury to excuse performances ... we'd be far better with Ramsay available ..?? Really ....he's had a fair number of limp penied performances when starting . Bellerin has also been dire at times .

I'd give Unai another year ..........BUT can anyone honestly see him playing the Grim Reaper and clearing out the deadwood .... as most of us advocate ..... his body language certainly doesn't suggest he is a no nonsense hard arse .

Arsenal Football Club have become a comfy convalescent home for high waged non performers . The majority will still be with us next season
........... and with Emery robbed of the fresh "new broom" advantage he enjoyed at the start of this season I can see plenty of heart ache ahead .

These fairies can't put in decent performances now ; when the prize of possible champions league football is on offer ... what to expect when the hum drum of a new season starts ...?

After a restless nights sleep I came to the conclusion that as well as a large number of players who need to go I think the defensive coaches at the club must be sacked. I have seen no improvement, rather the contrary, this season and they must also pay the penalty.

How is it Southhampton were woeful mid season but a new manager turned them around defensively whilst we actually have got worse as the season progressed.

The loss of Holding was not good but we don’t even know if he is good enough long term for the club. He put together a few good games but that is not enough to get our hopes up.

As for Leicester I still think Rodgers will be sacked next year. Whether it is before Emery is one for the bookies.

Even if he wanted to he couldn’t, the money just isn’t there. If he only has 50 million to spend that won’t buy us a wide man of the required quality we need let alone make us contenders again.

We need 5 players, he probably has only enough money for a couple.

People are now slagging off Emerys English even though Pochetino couldn’t speak a word for more than the same time frame.

It’s just pointless

Yep, that’s right. England have 4 champions league places. A 5th place is only opened up if an English team that finishes outside the top 4 wins the Europa League or champions league.
If both champions league and Europa league winners are English and both finish outside the top 4 then the 4th place team in the league is demoted to the Europa league.
I think I might be right in saying that the winner of the Europa league also enters the champions league as one of the 8 top seeds in the group stage.

Yeah, that's how I thought it worked.

Okay another one from out of right field. See if City will loan us Maherz next season.

but a lot of these teams that have outplayed us of late Watford , Palace , Wolves , Brighton , Everton , Leicester wouldn't been assembled for much more than fifty million .

I don't harbour thoughts of league titles anymore ... I'm just sick of these painfully slow buildups , an exchange of f*&&%$$$ useless passes back and forth in non threatening positions .

Three of the most useless pricks at our club cost the most , so it's not just a question of money .

We lose I've got no problem ...... but watching/ reading about us get turned over by 'lesser' just because they had more 'bottle' is what annoys me most .

Agreed Goonie ... but another important factor his team had in ...Seaman , Lukic , Bould , Adams , Dixon , Winterburn , Richardson , Marwood , Merson , Rocastle , Smith , Hayes , Allinson , Davis , Thomas ........ see it

They were all English ... chuck in O'Leary and Quinn from across the canal ....wasn't hard for the Scot to get his message across

We now have the United Nations team in which you need twenty translators to hand out a bollocking or convey team tactics .
There is no common spine , just don't have the same bond .

Suarez had a full season under Emery at Sevilla. He knew the player.

That's almost an irrelevance though. We have a new keeper, centre back and defensive midfielder this season yet we are conceding a stupid amount of goals. We went through a phase of being hugely conservative - 5 at the back against the likes of Bournemouth. We all know he had a tough job to get us back into Top 4, but there have been a lot of failings. He could have done considerably better and this past week has been a shambles.

Yeah thanks Dec .... wasn't too flash , lack of sleep was the biggest problem . So desperate to drop off yet unable to .... very dibilitating . Great now .

Good to see you back Kiwi, glad the health has improved.

Not overly, no.

If they stayed I wouldn't be upset but I do think they are players we could shift to raise some funds. Lacazette maybe harder to replace than Bellerin but for me hasn't justified his reputation.

Some of our players are lazy. Their off the ball running is non existent. Aubameyang is quite lazy nowadays. He does not run to open spaces to receive the balls, as much as he used to.

Players who play with energy & drive are Lacazette, Guendouzi, Monreal, Ramsey, Torreira, AMN, Welbeck, Kolasinac (on & off), Bellerin. Need to bring up Alexis, we missed his energy.

Worst culprits are Xhaka, Mkhitaryan & Özil. Elneny is most times lost at sea. Iwobi runs but headless & clueless. That's our midfield right there. That's why opposing managers knows how to target us. Mkhitaryan is simply going through the motion. No guts, no drive, no desire, no purpose, no intent to make a difference.

That is the same storybook that has Mustafi as a very good player. He is a politican who is saying what the masses want to hear. He does not believe it.

My first Arsenal team was the one GG built to win the league at Anfield so I don’t remember the bigger name players that came before that GG dumped, but I would certainly be up for this sort of plan.
What would be awful would be to accept we have no money to spend and just muddle on with the same group of under performing players.
Can you imagine the praise A manager would get now if he bought through virtually a whole team of English academy players, supplemented them with young English players from the lower leagues, installed a 21 year old as captain and went on win the league at the Etihad on the final day of the season? That group of English players would certainly get a lot more international caps than GG’s group did

So......we need to get rid of Özil (350k a week), Mika (200k a week), Xhaka, Mustafi, Monreal at the very least. An argument can be made for selling Iwobi as well. I'd keep Kos as a back-up if he was happy with that.

The question is, do we have the people with the nous to get all this done quickly and without just giving them away. I doubt it.

Who is going to want Özil or Mika on their wages? Nobody I suspect, bar perhaps a Chinese outfit.

In the unlikely event that we can get these players out of the door we then need to replace them which is no easy task given our alleged budget and the fact that if we are not in the CL it will be hard to attract the right level of player. We will be forced to take gambles on young up-and-coming kids with the potential to be top players.

It all feels a bit like the Liverpool of several years ago who were always on the perhiphery and never quite able to compete at the top level, but even they had Gerrard.

Xhaka is saying he is unable to explain our away day woes.

Well, let me give you a small clue, if you didn't have the attention span of a two year old and tracked your runner then maybe they might not have scored the first goal.

Well Henrik has his contract till until June 2021 on 170k a week and he’s 31 in January.

That means if we want rid of him we will definitely have to give him away on a free and even then pray some club out there is interested in him and believes 170k a week is good value.

Özil will be with us next year as I can’t see anyone being crazy enough to pay his salary. Even the Chinese

Kevin Whitcher hits the nail on the head again

There’s little debate that the squad looks in dire need of surgery, and there is still a hangover from the Wenger era in the quality of the players and the disproportionate wages some of them are getting. This millstone will take more than another year to phase out, and by the time that happens, Emery himself will have probably gone.


https://www.onlinegooner.com/articles/view/4762

I agree but it's also worth reading Arseblog this morning.

Unai Emery had a chance to basically secure top four this week and Champions League football for next season. He was in a fantastic position to do it, and he failed miserably. I keep hearing people make excuses like these aren’t his players, but were they his players when we beat United, played very well against Sp*rs, beat Chelsea, beat Napoli over two legs without conceding etc? You can’t pick and choose.

I'm not sold on his approach so far.

Hard to disagree with any of this:

https://www.suburbangooners.com/2019/04 ... -bottlers/

I’m not convinced myself and think like you he’s a transitional manager. A quick round up of the mistakes he’s made. 5 at the back, dropping Özil (frustrating yes but has to play) dropping Lacazette at the start of the season, probably making too many changes too often.

However that aside I can’t get the thought out of my head that this squad is one of the most mediocre we have had in years. There’s absolute dross in the squad because Gazidis let Wenger run his squad down. I don’t even think our players are even as good as the ones we had a few seasons back?

Would you swap Kolasinac for clichy ?
Would you swap mhikitaryan for Walcott?
Would you swap Iwobi for the OX?
Would you swap Xhaka for Cazorla?

I would and some of those players who left are hardly world beaters, the team is visibly worse than a few years back.

Do you think a 5th or 6th place finish would be disappointing from Emery considering the circumstances? I think Chelsea and spurs have far better players than us and are underachieving in the league.

I think position-wise, we're par for the course. But as Arseblog suggests, it's the timidity of some of our formations and approach to some highly winnable games. He's got it right in the bigger games at home largely but plays too safe in games against more average opponents. EVen before AMN was sent off, after twenty minutes we had 19% possession!! Against Leicester City! That's embarrassingly poor. I think he could be doing better in many ways, even with what he has.

Oh undoubtedly it was looking poor before the sending off. I just look at some of the players and think your just not good enough and it’s beyond any level of coaching to get more from them. At some point these players will hurt you.

Xhaka was jogging around the pitch like it was a kick about. I agree with souness that if Mustafi can’t work out he needs to be goal side at 27 years of age he’ll never learn and don’t get me started on Iwobi and mykhitaryan who have me praying for the return of Theo Walcott.

That’s 4, simply 4 players who are weak links by and large. Most teams can get away with one or two but four.

Across competions, up until the point when Ramsey's move to Juventus was confirmed on 11 February, he had started 16 games. How well did he play in any of them, regardless of his fine finish at Craven Cottage?

Ramsey's form really improved quite dramatically once his move to Juventus was sealed. Maybe it wasn't a question of attitude. But if not, unless it's pure coincidence which seems a little far-fetched, there must be some sort of explanation.