2nd half - City eases up & still should have got another 3. Just rewatching the match. It doesn’t look any better now. Not a lesson learnt for these players at all.

Freddie surrended the game when he told the players not to let the crowd get to them. He prepared them for defeat. And then was smiling and chatting with Pep after the game. He hasn’t got the mentality to manage and I now want him gone from the club when the new manager comes in. He might have thought the defeat was funny as he was crawling up Peps arse but I certainly didn’t.

I have a feeling it's an ex player.

Arseblog puts in this line to end today's blog, after earlier saying about an imminent appt.

I think you're right but I also think we face a battle to keep Aubameyang and Lacazette. I think you can add Martinelli to that list - he looks a real talent. Missing out on the CL is going to kill us.

I think it's Arteta. Vinai and Huss Famy left his house at 1.20am this morning.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-7796731/Arsenal-chief-Vinai-Venkatesham-leaves-Mikel-Artetas-Manchester-mansion-1-20am.html

Evening CheerGerm .... yes I agree with your following post ; Big Sam is the Go To Guy for lost causes .

We really have painted ourselves into a corner .

We persevere with Ljingberg I can only see relegation on the horizon .

Miracles can happen but I see Everton's more organised desperation trumping our headless chickens .

Cost for 3 tickets in the family enclosure yesterday around 150 quid plus travel and food and beverages all in probably around 220 quid for Top Gun.

This Sunday wot are we up to ? New Star Wars movie and followed by a pizza cost 60 quid. The kids will probably have more fun.

This is a calculation that doesn’t make sense or add up long term. I think this will drive Kroenke out, his business model wont work. Charging premium prices for bad entertainment in a sport that he doesn’t really understand. However I think he will damage Arsenal significantly before realising his mistake.

I’ll always be an arsenal fan but I just go less these days. The apathy will get worse and people will desert the cause.

Goodness, it must be him if Fahmy is there.

Santi Cazorla as a player assistant coach please with Xhaka going in the opposite direction

I do find it interesting how in the same way Liverpool are lazily labelled by the media as the greatest supporters the world has ever seen, Arsenal are now being labelled the worst supporters. As if somehow we have no right to be angry/sad/apathetic that our great club is slowly being mismanaged into a slow and expensive decline before our very eyes.

And to pick up on TG's point, as a season ticket holder since Highbury, the idea of giving it up always seemed like a non starter, but its becoming harder to justify it when you see the club being run by an American investment company who have no interest in Arsenal as a sporting institution.

the only thing equal in the second half Greeny ... was we both had eleven players on the pitch although it seemed they had about twenty .

They eased off and decided to conserve their energy for a real test ...who have they got next Leicester ?

If we'd have scored first that wouldn't have put them on the back foot ; it would have p***sed them off and they would have put eight passed us .

...and with Everton in crisis it isn't a great time to play them , they be busting a gut to get all three points .

Hi Darren,

It would not surprise me at all, and to a certain extent it would be quite an exciting appointment (into the unknown and all that). However, it must be said he has no real management credentials because he hasn't managed before and everyone says the manager's job is a far different proposition than a coach's job. How many no.2's have gone on to be great managers?

It would be a huge gamble and one of the issues is that because of the hectic fixure schedule he would have no time at all on the training ground to implement any of his ideas. Things could go pear-shaped very quickly if luck is not on his side given the set of fixures we are facing.

Would he be a strong enough personality to handle the bunch of overpaid undercommitted clowns we have in our squad, could he actually do anything with them (silk purse from a sow's ear)?

Hi Soc.

From what I've read about him, he wasn't concerned about rattling a few cages when at the club as a player. I think he and Mertesacker had enough credibility and personality when they were captain and vice-captain. I think he has the personality. He would, however, need the full backing of the club in any rebuild etc.

This pretty much mirrors my concerns.

It’s an easy appointment for the board, cheaper and an easy extraction from his current situation than say getting a Pochettino or Rogers.

He’s also got a reputation for being a nice guy and working with players but when I was watching yesterday’s game I was thinking to myself you need something of a villain to sort out this mess with over paid prima donnas performing poorly.

I wish him all the luck in the world because right now it feels like he would need to be a miracle worker.

Guardiola had one year managing Barcelona's B team before he was made manager of the senior team. Didn't turn out too bad.

He should be fined.

I suppose that’s a fair point and true.

Little bit easier to learn on the Job when you have Messi and Ronaldinho in your squad than Xhaka

Yes great idea

Let’s make our environment so hostile that any remaining decent player wants to bugger off

That's very true, Gunny, and I suppose every great manager has to start somewhere.

Make no mistake, though, this is a mammoth task. This isn't Guardiola taking over at Barca or Zidane at Madrid, this is a humungous undertaking that would test the abilities of even the greatest manager.

This sums up precisely how I feel after yesterday’s game. This is bang on the money


https://www.onlinegooner.com/articles/view/4921

He couldn't really throw on the young players against City, though. A completely disfunctional central midfield AND central defense at the same time pretty hard to fix. We just need to somehow shore things up at the back and hope we can outscore enough teams to keep our heads above water until the January transfer window.

I think that it pretty unfair.

Those pictures of Hector.

You'd never see anything like that back in the day when men were men and...er...

But he did.

Fairness is irrelevant.

Olympiakos. Could be worse. They tend to be dire away.

These 2 can go do one. LA Rams are their priority for success.

Little known fact

The wife of our new manager is an actress who features in CSI miami. How cool is that


https://youtu.be/sKGeOxskaWE

What did you make of yesterday’s game DHD if you don’t mind me asking.

Can’t get it out of my head, the horror the horror

Let me spare him the trouble of replying. It was embarrassing.

I don’t want Aubameyang, Lacazette or torriera sold, just that I think they will all need to be for various reasons.
Pépé, Tierney, Bellerin, Guendouzi, Holding I’m ok with, but at the moment The first two have barely started their Arsenal career and the later 3 haven’t convinced me they are ready to be a starting 11 for an Arsenal team that makes the top 4. Two of them coming back from really bad injuries. None of those 5 were mentioned by name in my post as players who need to leave.
Xhaka, premier league quality, yes - for a mid to lower table team - which is why we need to get rid of him.....ditto the others I named. I don’t see it as an over reaction to say we need 10 new players to properly challenge for the top 4. 2 CB and 2 CM, a ramsey/Özil replacement, a new RB, kolasinac replacement.....that’s 7 and we’d still not have great depth of quality at CB and CM

To be honest the most shocking thing about appointing Arteta is that he sat on the bench yesterday and watched the entire 90 minutes and still wants to be our manager.

Must be a sado masochist

Well TG, since you ask, the first point to make is I didn’t go. I posted the tickets on the Exchange but there were no takers; my fault I know but that’s £400 down the swannee. I offered the tickets free for the asking to my extended family and circle of mates and acquaintances but zero interest. I was truly surprised at the apathy – even my own – but when I saw the great swathes of empty seats, it made more sense.

On the game, we looked great for the first 45 seconds but after they scored, it seemed to me it was just a question of how many they wanted. Mercifully, they took their foot off the gas. Pep said they played better last week against Man U and lost. I didn’t watch too much of the second half so I can’t say much more.

Overall, we are an utter shambles. The least said about our defence, the better. Collectively, we must have the worst set of defenders in our history – and I grew up on Jeff Blockley and Gus Ceaser. Our midfield is now equally worthless. They don’t defend, press, create, shoot or dribble; both individually and as a group, they are pointless! Martinelli apart, yesterday’s attack was toothless and dull. There seemed to way too much distance between the defence and midfield but then at the same time, there looked to be miles between midfield and attack. That’s some trick.

And Özil! Offski, please with extreme prejudice. He has not re-invigorated himself in the slightest. He is the same inconsequential player that was rightly excluded from the squad in the early part of the season. He exudes the same air of privilege and entitlement. Emery was right to drop him and he was wrong to bow to the pressure to re-instate him. In many ways, Özil got Emery the sack although there was plenty of help from Xkaka, Sokratis, Luiz and Mustafi, the difference being that those are 4 poor players. Özil is – was – a proper talent, though that bird has long since flown. He’s only going through the motions now, with us for the money and to give him a platform for his views.

Only Leno and Martinelli emerged with an iota of credit. The rest were just dross. And Kolasinac DID duck. I doubt he could have stopped De Bruyne’s shot but he chose self-preservation over any sort of possibly painful attempt to save a goal. Xhaka did the same against West Ham. Luis regularly turns his back. That’s this team’s attitude. Would that be what you’d expect from Tony Adams, Martin Keown, Ashley Cole, Lee Dixon?

Yesterday, before all the current rumours broke, I saw a close-up of Arteta and I wondered, regardless of my views on his qualities as a coach, why the *%^@ would he wish to be associated with such a poor and tactically inept team? What can he do with a squad that’s currently ravaged by injuries with limited funds in the transfer window? Why leave vibrant City amid rumours that St Pep if off soon, only to join a moribund and leaderless club where the rock-bottom moral of the players is only matched by the apathy and outright scorn of the support?

Cheers DHD,

Only reason I was asking really was that I knew you were a season ticket holder and I just saw stuff yesterday that I’d never seen before.

The atmosphere is just dead and there were empty seats which I’d obviously seen before but at half time saw tons of people leaving.

Then during the 2nd half there was 2 guys Sat to the right of where I was sat giving dogs abuse to ....... Bernd Leno of all people ! (Amongst a couple of others)

My dad who was sat on the other side of the ground and is an old school hardcore wont leave till full time type fan text me to say he was off to the duchess of Kent with 20 minutes to go. He had enough and obviously tons of people left early but the feeling in the crowd is a combination of apathy and anger.

I can’t explain it but it just feels ... dead. Like end of days and people have had it. Arteta is the next sacrificial bunny so that Kroenke can increase the value of his shareholding. It must be a nightmare to play in front of however the performance was just shocking

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQwSUGNKyj8 ...

He wouldn't have stopped the shot ... it was too high .
.... but he certainly shrunk away from the possibility of blocking it which isn't something you expect a committed defender to do .


I watched the extended highlights on my Premier League channel ...... we didn't feature at all in any of the action .

So in Queensland, the health authorities have given new advice that people should be restricting themselves to 1.4 standard drinks per day of alcohol. Obviously they can't expect Arsenal fans to comply at the moment.

No man can serve 2 masters.

...although I must admit the stadium looks like its going to be very, very nice when I drove past it.

Palace got a point and are now above us in the league. Great

Look at the 3 teams above us. We are falling at a critical rate now.

They are going to need to do something in January to stop the rot. Swap player or trade to reinvigorate the squad as they are flat.

Just read a theory that Özil released that statement as a tactic to stop arsenal being able to sell him to a club in the Chinese super league (the only ones who could afford him)

Would make sense. Ie make it untenable

As much as I am intrugued by the possibility of Arteta I really do think it is an almightly gamble, and really one that a club the size of Arsenal should not be taking at this point.

Man U did much the same with Solskaar but only after an amazing start to his caretaker role when he became the darling of the fans and he was at least an actual manager who had managed before in the PL, albeit unsuccessfully. They probably feel now that they may have acted in haste. Time will tell on that one.

This feels a lot like when Brian Kidd was the no.2 under Fergie and everyone lauded his coaching skills and expected him to become a top manager. He went to Blackburn and just couldn't make the adjustment from coach to manager.

I hope Arteta is the real deal.

I've been almost looking forward to relegation.
I thought "That'll be one in the eye for the Kroenkes!"

But here we are, deja vu. Arteta is going to be our new manager. Yes, really definitely.
Oh, but maybe it's too much of a risk. We need someone with experience. Who's won things. Things that would get us into the big money CL again. Without having to win lots of games against good teams. Someone with experience of doing it with a not very good team. Maybe there's another one of those around this year.
We'll see. I won't believe anything until it's all signed and sealed.

I think we are focusing too much on the quality of the individual players. Yes, most don't seem that good or motivated. But why?

One of the characteristics of very good managers is that they improve players. Klopp does it. Guardiola. Poch. AW did it for most of his time here - and many players looked worse when they left.
But I think we can look across the whole of our current team and see players who seem worse than they used to be. For me, that's the proof that Emery was a bad manager.

We need a manager who can turn that round. Won't be easy or fast because of the scale of the decline, but also because of the psychological scars they must be carrying by now and that any playing style they had accumulated has been systematically dismantled. And with no coherent normal pattern to fit into.

Özil maybe being an exception. He seems more interested in Muslim/Turkish politics than football. And whatever is going on in his head seems to have been gradually building up over quite a few years.