Isn’t it equally relevant to ask why Willian has become an immeasurably worse player at Arsenal than he was at Chelsea? Is it only down to him being a year older? I doubt it. He won’t have lost any technical ability either. I suspect it might have more to do with Arteta not using him as Chelsea used him.

It is no so much about what he has won as a manager, but more his vision of football as a director of football that I'd be buying in to.
He was director of football at Leipzig and Salzburg recently. Took them from obscurity to champions league. I just like the approach to playing high tempo, high press attacking football alongside identifying the best young players and bringing them through as a cohesive team. You only have to look at the record of the players he bought to both Red Bull teams who have since moved on to achieve great things.

Agreed, it isn't a completely one way thing. Players certainly seem to regress when they come to us, and have done under 3 different managers for a number of years now.

Both right. I don’t think the players enjoy playing for Arteta, and whilst they adhere to his instructions on how he wants them to play, there’s no heartfelt desire to do their best to make it work it seems to me. I feel like there’s a massive lack of belief in both manager and his system.

He has, in my opinion, and in basic football parlance, lost the dressing room.

Like Tuchel

Chelsea spent 200 million in summer signings to sign Havertz, Werner, Chilwell, Ziyech, Mendy.

A bit different to not being able to get a tune out of El Nenny.

Yeah and we spent $70m on Pépé, 45m on Partey, 50 million on Aubameyang, 50m on Lacazette. Not all in one off season but they're still there and still expensive.

Allegri would get much more out of the same players.

We still need to do what we needed to do after Wenger left. The first step in that rebuild was being humble enough to accept that there wasn't a quick fix and that things may need to get worse initially but as long as the principles were clear, agreed then it would be better in the long term.
In Wenger's last season and in the next 2 seasons we went with quick fix options, experienced big budget signings, or free transfers on huge wages - hoping those players could lead a recovery back to the champions league. It has been totally flawed.

People compare us to Man U after Fergie left but it so vastly different because of the money available to man u to spend, they could keep throwing it at players and managers and of course eventually some of it will hit the right note.

If we are serious about getting back some respectability and challenging for top honours again then the inquest and actions need to be ruthless. Next year with no europe only requires us to have a 22 man squad maximum really. That's about 10 fewer than this season. The wage budget needs to be cut drastically, so every high earner needs to be carefully considered whether we want to build with them or we're better off selling them now if we can - that includes Aubameyang.

The only players I'm really keen to keep are Saka, Tierney, Partey, Martinelli, Smith-Rowe. Saliba needs to play next year and Balogun given chances. I wouldn't shed a tear over any of the others leaving.

I like Arteta and would like to give him more time. But then again, I felt the same about Emery...another season. I was wrong.

I'm not saying Arteta doesn't deserve the sack, but I remain to be convinced we'd be a lot better with another manager. We may...may, mind you, improve to say 7th, 6th if we're lucky (I don't think we can finish higher than City and Liverpool obviously, or Chelsea, Man Utd, Tottenham and Leicester). We may be able to pick off one of the aforementioned, likely Tottenham.

I don't think we'd do much better than Europa cup qualifying. I think Arteta is capable of top 6. But I don't see us much better unless 1. we get some spending money, decent spending money and 2. Get rid of a few players.

Right now, there is a certain amount of awe I think that Saka, Tierney and Smith Rowe have for playing for us. That will loon its lustre soon enough if a big club comes calling.

It’s not the same. The transfers your talking about were over several years then ones I referred to was one summer! Endless pot of money, spending 80 million on a single attacking midfielder. Sorry that’s next level.

You may see an uplift from a change in coaching but transfers and horse trading are the only things that get us out of our predicament I’m telling you.

https://www.goal.com/en/news/arsenal-ey ... nk8u38e0k6

We're supposedly trying to sign a player currently serving a doping ban until February 2022. Only Arsenal.
To be fair, if his appeal is upheld and you can get him for £7m then it is a good, low risk deal

Most likely he won't be exiting stage left if, when the ESL ever gets revised.

Especially if we can get nearly 20m for Leno.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/fc-arse ... /verein/11

So, who’s excited and looking forward to next season then?

Most expensive season tickets in the country.

An absolute mess.

Jesus

The fans of the 2 clubs at the top are paying for huge new stadiums with absolute manure put on it every week.

Arsenal’s owner is rich enough to throw money at players but chooses not to. Another difference is Manchester United, for all the criticism OGS has had here, in my view have a manager who has performed better with his players than Arteta has with Arsenal’s.

I’m not calling for Arteta to be sacked yet. But if he was I wouldn’t lose any sleep about it. I think his biggest danger could be something Top Gun mentioned a while back. Stan could use sacking him as a way of deflecting blame from himself, assuming the executive team report criticisms to him. A sort of ‘don’t blame me, I’m sacking incompetent managers’ (without saying he’d use the word ‘incompetent’).

But for all the moans about our lack of energy in many games, and last night was a very obvious example, I find it ironic that Arteta chose to get rid of Guendouzi. Because while not being popular here, energy is the one thing Guendouzi does provide. He’s also a good passer over long and short distances, and competes. His main problem is arguably a lack of positioning awareness. I’d hope that could improve with coaching and his own experience (as he gains it). Also he appears a bit of a head case and seems to lack humility. Yet do I think we’d have more points than we do this season if we’d had him playing for us? My own answer is a very firm yes.

Anybody aware of this from David Dein.


Unconfirmed: I'm hearing Gian Piero Gasperini will be leaving Atalanta in the summer.

He's a reputable and tactically nuanced. He transformed Atalanta from being relegation candidates to regulars in European competitions.

Would you take him?

That is correct. Loaning out almost all of our midfielders really did come back to bite us. Look at our midfield last night. Willock and Maitland-Niles (who can also play left wing back) would have been handy last night too.

Hmmm.

We were very lucky to come out of the first leg only 2-1 down. So I don't buy that we were unlucky over the two legs.

In any case we shouldn't lose matches against average sides when we are little unlucky. It should take a lot of bad luck, or a great performance from the opposition, to undo us. Neither these boxes was ticked last night.

It falls into the 'no excuse' category.

Are there any clubs on the continent with more expensive tickets overall? Curious.

Looking at Leicester’s line up tonight and our comparable players
Schmiechel....Leno
Castange.......Tierney
Evans............Holding
Fofana...........Gabriel
Soyuncu........Mari
Pereira..........Bellerin
Ndidi.............Partey
Tielemans......Xhaka
Maddison.......Saka
Vardy............Aubameyang
Ihenacho.......Pépé

I won’t try and work out the cost of each team or worse the net spend.

Leicester are said to be in pole position for Soumare from Lille, another very highly rated player who looks totally suited to the English league

Joe Willock just scored Newcastle's first. Did we manage to score against Leicester?

Really pleased for Willock. The loan has done him wonders. I still don’t know where he fits in for us but he’s going to come back a better players.

We did beat Leicester 3-1 away, one of our best performances of the season that one

Arteta may have not slept well last night, but who knows...

So tonight might not have been the best night for me to make an Arsenal and Leicester comparison!

Don't care focus should be 100% on Kroenke out.

No offence just don't see the point caring about managers unless they get someone like Conte or Allegri and give them a £400M budget, which is about as likely as WBA winning the title next season.

We are not Sevilla Stan so f*ck off!.

Well said Wilts. Kroenke is poison, with quite a few full stops or exclamation marks.

So UEFA fines plus withholding some payments from European games as I understand it. Yet to see it in writing

I would add Gabriel to the list.

There's a very real possibility we end up 10th at season's end. The one big thing I will fault Arteta on is who he plays. Martinelli should have been playing much more. Other players playing less.

I didn't post in on here because there would have been a wave of 'are you a nutter?' (for a few I can say 1+1=2 and that would be the same answer...lol ) is that I never thought Willock was as bad as most thought. I didn't think he would be a starter. But I thought he'd be useful in league cup games, weaker FA cup competition, off the bench in league games, early competition in Europa league games. He could be a squaddie. Do I think he shouldn't be sold? No, lets get the money for him that he's currently worth to Newcastle. The Geordies should have to pay for his current form and his potential and age.

One has to ask why he's Messi for the Toon right now. I've been to their forums. The fans want him bad and are worried he's going to be expensive because of his form. They love him. They respect that Arsenal always seems to have great youth players. I think a lot of Arsenal fans are very impatient. I recall early on reading and hearing how young players were brought along slowly and get experience over months.

I would be curious to see if Rodgers would come if we approached him. Leicester are a better club, but we are a bigger club. We are losing our reputation for being patient with managers. We are looking like Sunderland when it comes to managers. So, the one thing potential managers will ask themselves is 'Will I be given time? If I'm not winning like the old Arsenal right away will get the sack? Will I even get a season?'

Or is that being hyperbolic? My guess is Rodgers would love to prove himself again with a big club.

From the guardian
If you think Arteta's the problem, what about Edu? If it's Edu, does Vinai get off? What about the players? And does any of this matter while the Kroenkes are in situ? The problem with pointing fingers around Arsenal is that there are so many targets

Hi Rich,

Arteta picks the team, chooses the formation and tactics, makes the substitutions and has a big role in making sure that the players are motivated to produce the required performances.

I can't honestly say, bar the odd game here and there, that his management has delivered impressively in any of those areas.

Arteta talks the talk very eloquently but as far as I am concerned he has so far failed to walk the walk.

This is a good article, fed up with Arteta and scathing towards KSE

https://7amkickoff.com/index.php/2021/0 ... gotiables/

Agree with the opinions regards Arteta, especially the way he manages dissenting players. I thought Wenger (in his latter years) was bad for us, Arteta is worse.

I do understand all that and agree Arteta has made mistakes, but did we not expect him to as a rookie manager.
I put the guardian quote up for context, rather than putting it up because I agree with every word, but blame for our demise can’t be laid at a single person.

Now I’ve calmed down from the disappointment of Thursday, and having thought about what people have said, both here and elsewhere, including all the ramifications of managerial change, I think I’m in the give Arteta one more season camp. I think.

I think it makes sense, give him till Christmas. He’s made mistakes granted but we need to restructure and wont get anywhere till this is done.

Also I just don’t believe there’s an alternative. Allegri won’t want anything to do with us and if he did isn’t his preference to play a certain system with wingbacks and 3 defenders. It means tearing everything up again system, coaches, acquiring certain types of players.

All of that said I was half expecting Arteta to be fired by now in an act of deflection from Kroenke.