2 midfielders who clearly should be playing for championship sides not Arsenal.

Damn you Arteta you should be getting more out these world beaters !,,,,

To be fair, I have seen very view things from Arteta that lead me to believe he will be a worldbeater of a manager either.

His team selections and tactics have been very questionable all season, his intra-game management shaky and his substitutions really poor. Not to mention some of his man management which has raised a few eyebrows.

Poor squad or not he has not covered himself in glory this season and he appears to be throwing his players under the bus now to deflect attention away from his mismanagement.

How well has Tuchel done at Chelsea. I know he's got a huge squad and he turned up with lots of very good players simply out of form, but he has taken them from 9th to almost certainly top 3, in to the FA Cup final and the champions league final. He's switched the formation to a back 3 and has reinvigorated players who were sleepwalking under lampard.

Let’s appoint Pépé Guardiola and give him midfielders who aren’t good enough to play for Norwich. That’ll fix it !

Bet you he’s sacked within 2 years,

It’s one thing getting a tune out of underperforming 80 million pound midfielders but not having 80 million pound midfielders is quite a different problem.

He may well be, but that hire them, fire them tactic hasn't exactly harmed Chelsea in the last 15 years since Roman came in.
After the initial cash injection for the first half of Roman's time Chelsea have been pretty much self sustainable (allowing for the huge interest free loan from Roman that is effectively debt). Chelsea's model of hoarding players, getting big loan fees and selling for big profit has them self sustainable.

Arsenal do have a forward line of players we bought for £45m, £55m and £70m. For that kind of outlay we should expect more goals and all round attacking play than we have had.
Our net spend over the last 3-4 years in greater than Chelsea's. When we moan about not being able to afford more £50m players we need to look back to losing the likes of Sanchez, Ramsey, Wilshere, Welbeck etc for £0, and giving Özil £350k a week. If we'd been much better at managing what we already have/had we'd have far more scope to improve our squad as it stands now and would almost certainly not be in the downward spiral we are in

Exactly.

We are hardly a squad of complete cloggers with no money spent on them.

I'd say what Arteta has done this season is a little below what you might reasonably expect, infact closer to the worse case scenario of underperformances than a promising year.

Midfield 3 yesterday, 1 loaner spent nothing, another a player signed from Basel for 10 million Besiktas thought wasn’t good enough for them and a youngster on loan at Huddersfield last year chucked head first into the first team. So no we pretty much spent nothing on that midfield. The most crucial part of the pitch.

Let’s not even mention the left wing 32 year old free transfer.

Related to a comment a few days ago about Arsenals home form...

"Arsenal have lost seven home Premier League games in 2020-21 – they last lost more home league matches in a single campaign in 1929-30 (nine), a season in which the Gunners finished 14th in the table"

How many home games do we have left?

If Ceballos is no better than a Championship player, then why in his two seasons at Real Madrid before joining Arsenal on loan, did they select him to play 56 competitive first team games? Furthermore if he really is Championship standard, how has he won 11 full caps for the Spanish national team? We’re not talking of the Faroe Islands or San Marino here. We’re talking Spain. I’m not saying Ceballos is great and I expect Real to move him on. But you don’t play 56 games for arguably the world’s biggest club in two seasons if you’re not better than Championship level.

To be honest, what has happened to Ceballos this season is indicative of something that worries me as much as the different points you raise socrates. It’s something I discussed with Rich quite recently. Players appear to get worse at Arsenal, and dare I say under Arteta? When he was first appointed I was impressed with the way players were improving. Xhaka and Mustafi were two obvious examples, and Xhaka has remained so.

But after a first season on loan by Ceballos that was good enough (he made an important contribution to Arsenal’s FA Cup win last season) to make Arteta decide to give him another year on loan, look what’s happened to him this season? Look what’s happened at Arsenal to the outstanding player Willian was at Chelsea? Look what’s happened to the outstanding prospect Ødegaard was when he joined us? Look what’s happened to Bellerin this season? Similar questions can arguably be asked about Aubameyang and Lacazette this season.

Is it outlandish to suggest they’ve all become worse players under Arteta? With any or all of them there could feasibly be other explanations. However, if their decline has nothing whatsoever to do with Arteta, then it looks to me as though the long arm of coincidence is continuing to grow appreciably.

I think it is probably true that a certain amount of players have regressed under Arteta and a certain amount of improved, how much you place either category at the door of the manager or the player themselves is a worthy debate but a difficult one to resolve until that player moves clubs and plays under a new manager.
Obvious player improvements are Saka and Smith Rowe - how much is that Arteta or down to 19 years olds being more obvious in their natural improvement as they mature?
I think Elneny has improved this season - although the bar is low
Xhaka has improved under Arteta a small bit and maintained that level, and dare I say were it not for his reputation would be considered one of our most consistent performers this season.
Lacazette has improved this season but still isn't at the reputation level he came with when he first signed.
I also think Mari has improved in the sense that hes maybe convinced a few people that he can be a 3rd choice CB for us.
Pépé maybe with some small improvements - particularly post the Leeds red card
Players who have got worse this season under Arteta: Aubameyang, Partey, Leno, Ceballos, Willian, Bellerin (need to factor in the injury)

The rest are more difficult to judge because they've either stayed at a similar level or have lost time to injury or need time to recover properly from a previous long injury.

My plan to make Arsenal competitive and relevant again would be to take the model of Dortmund and Leipzig and even Ajax but become the top of that tier of teams doing that. It would require a huge dose or reality and humility on Arsenal's part that decide that there will be times that we need to sell our best player, but that is football. There is maybe only 4-5 clubs in the world who can resist selling a player. Everyone else needs to use it as an opportunity to gain maximum value and re-invest to make the group stronger.

A lot of the most talented young players in the world decide to go to the likes of Dortmund ahead of the likes of Real, Barca, Man U because they know they will be given game time, be allowed to develop and be allowed to leave when the time is right.
Dortmund have Sancho (£7m), Bellingham (£25m) and Haaland (£20m) and they will sell all 3 of those within the next 3 years or so would be my bet. Together they could easily be sold for £250m. None of those 3 players were a secret, I know Arsenal were massively in for both Sancho and Bellingham but they chose Dortmund because of what they offer.

Back to the old, 'we don't buy superstars, we make them' model. Either through the academy or through astute signings of highly rated young players on good transfer fees - and sometimes that will mean paying £25m+ for a highly rated 21 year old, but I'd rather do that than commit that sort of money plus treble the wages on a 29 year old.
If you wanted to go full manifesto we should be looking at players with a max transfer value of £30m and a maximum wage of £75-100k per week and really stick to the self imposed rule of making sure players are either sold or sign a new deal when they're 2 years away from a bosman.

Rich, another case worth mentioning is the way Willock has appeared to improve at Newcastle. Is that down to playing under Bruce rather than Arteta? As with all the others we’ve mentioned, it’s probably debatable how much can be put down to the manager or in Willock’s case a change of managers. But I’d say it is another example where questions are warranted.

Leicester midfield 3 this weekend, ndidi, tielemans, Maddison

West Ham soucek, Lanzini, Lingard

Nevermind City, chelsea etc

Arsenal yesterday? El Nenny, cebackpass and Smith Rowe.....would you swap ours for theirs ? utter poverty. Our fans are deluded if you think we can get in the top 4 with players like that getting so many games. You won’t get anywhere

Again, you completely ruin you credibility with statements like this.

Why wouldn't he play Willian in this utterly pointless, season already over, game?

Who in your view should have played in Willians position?

I am still livid with Arteta with the Xhaka at leftback thing. But one does need to get a grip.

Farcical, self-inflicted wound.

Arteta desperately wanted two quality midfielders. He got one. Really shouldn't have loaned out all of our promising up and coming midfielders. Really shouldn't have moved one of our two half decent remaining midfielders to left back.

I think it might be a case of just giving him minutes. You have to take a chance with young players, even if they look slightly out of their depth initially. In an ideal world (i.e one in which we had decent midfielders and Willock would have been firmly in the 'one for future' category) loaning him out would have been the right move.

Fair enough, but, believe it or not, Willock played 61 first-team games in the season and a half before he went on loan (obviously most off the bench), so he'd had plenty of opportunities to make an impact.

It would be interesting to look more closely at how Willock is being played. I haven't really watched any of his games at Newcastle. At the weekend, from the highlights I saw he seemed to be in a midfield 3 behind a front 2 who would split and work the wide areas and give him licence to press forward.
My view of Willock is he is not a No.10 - where he's been asked to play for us before as that position is more about the ball coming to you in the final third and you finding and making space in tight areas. I'm also not sure Willock is physically ready or defensively minded enough to play in a 2 man central midfield. So really you're probably looking at his best position being as a pair of No.8s playing in tandem in front of a designated holding mid. He's box to box specialising on arriving late and unmarked in the box with a nose for timing and a goal. I don't think he's ever played that role for us. In theory is you had a Partey/Cazorla/Willock midfield 3 it could suit him well. Cazorla can be the technically excellent deeper guy who's passing and creativity negates the need for a dedicated No.10.
A team who sets up to counter attack suits Willock as well because of the energy and late runs in to the box.

The question for Arteta and Arsenal is do we see us forming a team that can play to Willock's strengths or is it better to sell him to a team more suited and extract the maximum value we can from him whilst his stock is as high as it has ever been. Newcastle definitely want him

Willian's first goal for us apparently came from only his 3rd shot on target for us.

It was great to see the joy Saka had down the left from his left back position v West Brom. He linked well with Willian. This was mainly down to creating 2 v 1's every time Saka went forward because West Brom's wide player didn't track him. It happened in a similar way v Spurs at Home because Bale didn't track back. Attacking football is pretty simple really, it is about moving the opposition out of their spaces to create spaces for you in dangerous areas. If we're static the defence can be static which is the easiest way to defend you can just patrol a 10 yard circle from your starting position and keep the correct distances to your teammates.

Saka yesterday was just the natural positivity of playing attacking football, you realise that there is an opportunity for a 2v1 and you go for it, you don't worry about the full back being out of position and their winger unmarked if they counter attack because a) you just wouldn't ever attack if you thought like that and b) you should have your central midfield and centre backs with enough positional sense and pace to cover that anyway. CM and CB need to be on high alert and on the front foot to step in and win the ball high and keep the attack recycled back or even commit the classic professional foul on the half way line

So, in other words, Willian only has 3 more shots on goal than I have?

Let’s be honest here the players we’ve loaned out are not our saviours. It’s really searching to suggest otherwise

It’s not like we’ve made the mistake of loaning out Kai Havertz or mason mount. I’d have kept AMN but couldn’t argue with loaning Willock.

In an ideal world. But not if you only have Ceballos and El Neny in the cupboard.

We should have kept at least one of AMN, Willock or Guendouzi.

You are correct. I have to admit that I didn't think he was ready to play first team, from what we saw this season.

But the point is that we really did leave ourselves very thin in a couple of crucial positions.

Defense, ownership, goalkeeping, coaching, management, forwards, scouting, midfield ....

Yeh, but apart from that we're not in bad shape.

Interesting read about Martinelli. Might explain why he is now struggling a bit after a stellar start. https://newsjust24all.com/mikel-arteta- ... R0hua9CDc4

lol

We should have moved our one good player from wide right to left back so we could put our totally inadequate midfielder filling in there back in his midfield spot to replace an even more Inadequate midfield player who was playing there Inadequately instead. Only problem with that ? Probably means playing someone wide right who won’t be adequate!

https://youtu.be/SnmX4f6VBRw

Leno is meant to be up for sale which seems a bit odd.

I did read some reports a couple of weeks ago that he had asked for a transfer.

To sell Martinez and then sell Leno the very next summer seems poor planning, unless they have a pretty darn good replacement lined up.

There's 6 of them up for sale.

https://www.football365.com/news/bernd- ... r-overhaul

Yeah it’s a Kroenke inspired summer warchest PR article

This bit..

But Mikel Arteta still retains the support of Arsenal’s hierarchy and the club are prepared to spend big in an ‘unprecedented’ transfer window

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2021/05/10/arsenal- ... to=cbshare

Pretty sure Leno will enjoy cracking on with his career without missing Arsenal fans blaming him every time a goal goes in. Wouldn’t shock me if he wanted out sharpish

Forbes top 50 sports teams for 2021.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football ... s-24078326

It is a fair piece. I still think Martinelli can be a fine centre forward but there are very few 19 year olds who play the lone striker role anywhere in europe let alone at a big club, and those that do will almost certainly be surrounded by top quality.

20 years ago Martinelli could have broken through as a striker partnership in a classic 'big man/little man' combo. Right now the lone striker is one of the hardest positions for a young player to break in to first team football, mainly because physically they are often up against experienced centre backs and there's 2 of them to 1 of them, and there is a lot more to the lone striker role than running in behind quickly, dribbling and lethal finishing - which are the things that the best young strikers tend to be very good at.

Surely there needs to be a 1 in front of that 6?

A bit surprised to see Liverpool so high, only $100m behind Man U? Surely that can't be right.
Also Liverpool values at $1.3 billion more than Arsenal. It is only really the last 5 years they've overtaken us on the pitch consistently. I understand they have more history, more trophies and more fans but I'm surprised at that valuation in relation to others.

You can look at form tables in the league and put in the start date you want.
In the last 25 games (so take out the first 10 of the season) we're 6th
In the last 20 games we're 4th
In the last 15 games we're 5th
In the last 10 games we're 4th

I'm not putting this up here to show we're on the right track per se, more to show how wildly inconsistent so much of the league and teams have been this season.
It feels like we've only had a decent run of 6 games around the turn of the year the rest has been a lot of up and down so it is hard to think of us as the 4th best team over the last 20 games which is a big sample.

This season more than any has had a very strange set of circumstances - the same for every team of course. It will be very interesting to see what happens assuming fans can fill stadiums next year, do things return to a bit of normality, you'd think the home/away records will after being way off this year

Because we need to be managing him out of the club, not giving him expectations he is to stay.