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.

Equally focusing too much on the managers when trying to understand what's going wrong. Ljunberg hasn't seemed that great, but he's had a set of players, out of form shall we say, plus injuries and no support staff. And the no support staff was always telling him what he needed to know about the club's intended next step.

I think Emery was a bad manager, but I'm not sure what involvement he had in signings, with the exception of the lamentable Suarez.

And AW gets a lot of flak over the current crop, but one of the things I noticed is that the types of players over his last few years didn't really fit the types of players he liked. We could see he wanted Sanchez. Özil was just picked up in a last day 'bargain' sale from RM. To show we were still a big club. After years of AW apparently being starved of funds for new signings. We know Gazidis had a plan to reduce AW's control of football processes. Hard to know the truth from outside, but I think the odds are many of those buys being more influenced by the new club 'processes' than being AW choices.

I saw AW saying that the club had 70 employees when he started, but 750 when he left. Looking at the results I think it would have been much better if Gazidis had been kept away from football matters. Not that he seemed to be doing as well on the financial and contract sides as other big clubs either.

It was supposed to have been his casting vote to choose Emery over Artetà last year. Because he so impressed them at the interview. Emery? Impressed at an interview. In English? Just a story, of course. Doesn't seem that it could be true. And Gazidis claimed the decision was unanimous.

The one thing we can all see is that the whole contracting side of the club has performed abysmally for ten years or so. Paying too much, wages too high, selling too low, slow to make decisions. Some of that might have been Wenger, but all of it can't have been. And from a strategic point of view, it's got worse not better.

Last summer seemed like a potentially exciting success. or a lot of fans thought so. Pépé so expensive, and young; exciting and successful. But did we really want a winger that much? Saka starting to come through. We bought Saliba as a CB. Did we need a CB? - obviously we did. So our new signing was loaned out for the year. Presumably the only way we could sign him, but the outcome was we didn't have a new CB. Except a last minute 'bargain basement' Luiz. Mmm. That can't have been planned. And whoever thought Luiz would be a good buy to plug holes in a defence? He had often been a loose cannon in an otherwise very tight Chelsea defence. Aubameyang and Lacazette? Tierney was a gamble. Not paying off yet, but maybe he'll get less injury prone. Not that we've had much success with players getting less injury prone. The one outstanding success is Martinelli; I'll assume that's down to Edu since that brings hope he might find a few more. It's all total chaos.

He will not be heading to China anymore. His tweet killed all chances.

I don't recall Arteta displaying any leadership on the pitch and don't think he has the gravitas to re-arrange the current lazy bunch.

Terminating Ozils contract would be the strongest message Arsenal could send to the squad right now.

Martinelli is a great prospect. I'd hate to lose Aubameyang but Martinelli has super start written on him.

Yes

Like i said; it makes his position untenable and might be deliberate. He’s trying to get a pay off

That’s fine but that involves paying Özil another 10 million to cancel the contract

The only message it sends is that if you act up you can make a fortune if they can cancel your contract too.

Look at the stats

The midfield is non existent

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football ... ield-ozil/

No player can be sold against their will.....as long as their will is strong enough. You can’t fine a player for refusing to leave, all you can do is make them train with the kids and not pick them. Özil doesn’t seem overly bothered by that. If he was bothered he’d surely show a bit more in games.
If Özil wants to stay and see out his contract then he will

I think Aubameyang is off this summer. He is clearly not renewing, and even if he did would it be sensible for a club like ours, one that is rebuilding, to have a superstar striker on £300k per week on a deal that takes him to he is 34?
Sell him for £60-80m to one of the big Spanish two and invest that money in defence

Or he might be someone genuinely interested in highlighting the greatest mass incarceration since WWII. It is not always about money.

I wouldn’t trust his character as far as I’d throw it.

If it was another player maybe

Yes it's a tricky one isn't if Gunny?

His comments certainly don't help the Club as they try to build their fan base in China - nor do they help the PL as they build the world-wide brand of English football. Does he have a right to speak out? Undoubtedly as a man but should celebrities and public figures use their fame like this?

Seems to me that if the cause is important - and I agree this one is - anything that shines a light on such an outrageous disregard for human rights is fair enough.

With it looking like Arteta (37) thought I'd copy this list that Andy Kelly (@Gooner_AK) posted on twitter of ages of previous managers when they took over.

I dont think so. Özil is a toxic influence on all those around him and they need to cut him out. the longer he stays the more he will infect others.
being sacked I think it unlikely anyone would be rushing to buy him, nor paying a fraction of what he's on now. Maybe in Turkey or something but who else would want to be living and playing over there. Other players might act up like you say but stick them in the kids training for 9 months and don't play them at all and see if they're happy with it. Özil is so unprofessional that he doesn't care, nor does he seem to have any interest in playing football. I doubt other players are the same and most want to be on the pitch and playing. Real Madrid dumped him quick smart when he was supposedly in his prime. Germany wanted nothing to do with him. But under the tender mother hen wing of Wenger he crawled. Get rid of him.

You know absolutely nothing about him off the pitch.

I think some regimes are so odious that to not speak out would be the less moral course. Özil is a devout Muslim so him championing his co-religionists is not a surprise.

Having witnessed at close quarters just how poor this Arsenal team is on Sunday, I would imagine Arteta's first question to our contract cronies was how much money will I have to spend in January. As we need a centre half and centre mid as a minimum requirement immediately. Both built like brick s%*&houses preferably.

If he was told there is no money available he should run a mile.

apologies, thought the expletive would be obscured in my previous post

Edit - Fixed

Arseblog reporting Arsenal have agreement with Arteta, with just City release part of the deal to be agreed now.

I do

His attitude stinks

He’s a bit of a *%^@

And to quote Aaron Ramsey “he’s the worst trainer I’ve ever seen”

He’s a dick mate and on Sunday his petulance proved it. You have teenagers behaving more professionally

Someone get ridvpls

Imo Arteta will do no better than Freddie.......

Hope I'm wrong

I think anyone would struggle with this lot, regardless of age/experience. Worst Arsenal team I've seen for as long as I can remember.

This is interesting

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/50784201

The part chairman says the club needs to make money as they are way behind clubs like arsenal

Made me think again about what I thought on Sunday. Arsenal are not a sporting institution. There’s no desire to do well

We have the worst midfield on any arsenal side I’ve witnessed.

Even the selley, morrow, hillier midfield put challenges in

I hope Arteta has the balls to rattle some cages.

I will be interested to see just how much power he is given, especially with respect to transfers.

Will be be allowed to shift out the bad eggs and bring in some players with passion and desire.

Arteta was quoted in 2014 as saying his philosophy as a future coach would be firstly to demand 120% from everyone, and if they don't then they don't play for him. He also said he is committed to a style of play that is attacking, entertaining and focuses on his team more than the opposition.