• ! ! ! IMPORTANT MESSAGE ! ! !

    Discussions about police investigations

    In light of recent developments about a player from Premier League being arrested and until there is an official announcement, ALL users should refrain from discussing or speculating about situations around personal off-pitch matters related to any Arsenal player. This is to protect you and the forum.

    Users who disregard this reminder will be issued warnings and their posts will get deleted from public.

Mikel Arteta: Top Of The Klopps

HairSprayGooners

My brother posted it ⏩
Also after last night's game, hope Arteta supporters realise that there's nothing wrong with our squad, it has a lot of potential. When he gets the selection and game plan right they become a lot better than West Ham and could easily be top 4.

With all due respect we played Slavia Prague.

This is the point I made about the majority of these players though. Ceballos can have a 10/10 against Sheffield United and then drop a 3/10 next week. Lacazette was on course to doing a similar thing in terms of overall performance last night, he was pretty poor generally speaking, especially compared to the game against Sheffield United. We have insanely inconsistent footballers across the board. You can include Pepe in that bracket, but I still think Pepe could come good playing from the left.

The bottom lines is we shouldn't be 10th, but we certainly don't have the squad to easily be top 4 either, due to the inconsistencies of some players.

Although if we had Tierney and Partey for the entire season along with ESR and Ødegaard from the start you'd have to say we'd be a lot less than 10 points behind 4th.
 

HairSprayGooners

My brother posted it ⏩
So picture the scene.

Arteta gets us over the line in the Europa League, winning the next three games regardless of how that comes about.

What does that mean for his immediate future for you, does it change any current position you hold on his stay at the club?

Manager wins our first European trophy and gets us back into the CL after 5 years, is there really any debate? After that you obviously give him the summer and the next season.
 

blrgooner

Established Member
Slavia Prague looked poor because we played so well. Lets not forget they not only have an incredible home record of no defeats in 2years but have dumped Rangers and Leicester out of the same competition.

I still think our squad is a lot better than West Ham’s.
Yes. But West Ham have over performed and will very likely be only in the top 10 at best next season.
I don`t think our squad is better than City/Utd/Chelsea/Liverpool. I think we are maybe on par with Sp**s. So 5-6 is what you can expect from this squad consistently In my opinion. This doesn`t mean we "cannot" finish top 4. Just that we would need to over perform to get there.
 

HairSprayGooners

My brother posted it ⏩
We have a really smooth run of games now, a nice 6 day break between Everton and playing the first leg of the semi, Newcastle inbetween the semi final legs where we can rest a bunch of players. And of course if all goes well we have Brighton at home on the last day, the final of the Europa league is 3 days later.

I am of course looking at United getting through against Roma despite it not being a given, same with us against Villareal of course. But United have a pretty difficult run in after this weekend. They play -

Leeds away, first leg against Roma, Liverpool at home, second leg against Roma then Villa away, Leicester at home and their final two games are Fulham at home and Wolves away on the last day. Ole doesn't rotate an awful lot either.
 

Makingtrax

Worships in the house of Wenger 🙏
Trusted ⭐

Country: England

Player:Saliba
Yes. But West Ham have over performed and will very likely be only in the top 10 at best next season.
I don`t think our squad is better than City/Utd/Chelsea/Liverpool. I think we are maybe on par with Sp**s. So 5-6 is what you can expect from this squad consistently In my opinion. This doesn`t mean we "cannot" finish top 4. Just that we would need to over perform to get there.
We’ve never had a more expensive squad than those 4 clubs since 2004 but we did have a manager that could get in amongst them every year until our fans took up an aggressive campaign to undermine and remove him.

The last 4/5 years we’ve seen the results of that. But it doesn’t mean it can’t ever happen again. Just not as consistently as before.
 
Last edited:

HairSprayGooners

My brother posted it ⏩
We’ve never had a more expensive squad than those 4 clubs since 2004 but we did have a manager that could get in amongst them every year until our fans took up an aggressive campaign to undermine and remove him.

The last 4/5 years we’ve seen the results of that.

You're actually obsessed man. You do realise what you're saying here is complete bullshit considering those clubs mentioned had different managers every time spending the money in question on different players every couple of seasons? Whilst ours, despite having less money to spend, had the time to build a squad the way he wanted, in fact he had around 10 years to rebuild a title winning squad and completely failed. So it all evens out and we should've title challenged at least once and got past the knockout stages of the CL in said years. However we didn't, which is failure if you've been here for so long. End of story, drop it.
 

Dutch D

Well-Known Member & FPL Champion 19/20
We have a really smooth run of games now, a nice 6 day break between Everton and playing the first leg of the semi, Newcastle inbetween the semi final legs where we can rest a bunch of players. And of course if all goes well we have Brighton at home on the last day, the final of the Europa league is 3 days later.

I am of course looking at United getting through against Roma despite it not being a given, same with us against Villareal of course. But United have a pretty difficult run in after this weekend. They play -

Leeds away, first leg against Roma, Liverpool at home, second leg against Roma then Villa away, Leicester at home and their final two games are Fulham at home and Wolves away on the last day. Ole doesn't rotate an awful lot either.
Yeah we have a relatively easy run in, but we shouldn't look at them. We realistically only have Sp**s, Everton and staying above Leeds to worry about. I think Villa will drop off (the Grealish injury has been really unlucky for them).

Edit: I just realised that maybe you meant they have a more difficult run getting to the final and would be less 'fresh' if they were to get there.
 

Makingtrax

Worships in the house of Wenger 🙏
Trusted ⭐

Country: England

Player:Saliba
You're actually obsessed man. You do realise what you're saying here is complete bullshit considering those clubs mentioned had different managers every time spending the money in question on different players every couple of seasons? Whilst ours, despite having less money to spend, had the time to build a squad the way he wanted, in fact he had around 10 years to rebuild a title winning squad and completely failed. So it all evens out and we should've title challenged at least once and got past the knockout stages of the CL in said years. However we didn't, which is failure if you've been here for so long. End of story, drop it.
:lol: What I just said is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. You calling it bullish!t is the very reason Trump got banned on Twitter.
 

Tree Points

Another annoying Manc
Manager wins our first European trophy and gets us back into the CL after 5 years, is there really any debate? After that you obviously give him the summer and the next season.
I don't usually agree with you but you're right here - if a manager wins you a European trophy and gets you back into the Champions League, he's done his job and deserves more time in the job.
 

HairSprayGooners

My brother posted it ⏩
:lol: What I just said is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. You calling it bullish!t is the very reason Trump got banned on Twitter.

So you're saying from the CL final Wenger couldn't build a title challenging team over 10 years whilst other managers rocked up to clubs and managed to do it in 1, 2 or 3 years? Do you ever re-read what you're saying?
 

Makingtrax

Worships in the house of Wenger 🙏
Trusted ⭐

Country: England

Player:Saliba
So you're saying from the CL final Wenger couldn't build a title challenging team over 10 years whilst other managers rocked up to clubs and managed to do it in 1, 2 or 3 years? Do you ever re-read what you're saying?
Read my post again, I didn’t say any of that. :lol:

And to respond to your post, apart from the richest 3 clubs that have run away with the vast majority of Prem titles, there haven’t been any other managers that have rocked up and won the title with 1,2,3 years. Klopp took 5 years and had to break into the top 3 spending to do it, and that’s been their only title in 30 years. Who are these managers?
 

Blood on the Tracks

AG's best friend, role model and mentor.
Trusted ⭐

Country: England

Player:Rice
Slavia Prague looked poor because we played so well. Lets not forget they not only have an incredible home record of no defeats in 2years but have dumped Rangers and Leicester out of the same competition.

I still think our squad is a lot better than West Ham’s.

Well by that logic Arteta deserves massive praise for getting his team selection and tactics right. To be honest even though I like him, I don't think he does. Beating Slavia Prague handily should be standard, that's not taking anything away from the players who played well last night.

Look at Moyes' squad at Everton, with a handful of exceptions you would say they were a fairly middling side. He got them massively over performing.

I know Moyes is treated as a bit of a joke but he's a bloody good manager in certain situations. Take a fairly mediocre squad and Moyes will have them well drilled, defensively stable, hard to beat, playing fairly basics football but getting results. If he has a chairman / board that gets him and is happy with that he'll do a good job.

At Everton and West Ham Moyes made the sum of their squad better than the individual parts, there's an art to that. Just comparing names and reputations in the West Ham squad to Arsenals and saying we're better than them isn't how football works. It about how the squad gels.

The issue with Moyes style of play is that there is ceiling to how far you're going to get playing that way, Europa League max. I'm not saying it'll work, but what Arteta is trying to do is instil a philosophy and style of play that is much more expansive and ambitious. Trying to do that when you have players that may not be up to it technically is challenging as we're seeing.
 

Makingtrax

Worships in the house of Wenger 🙏
Trusted ⭐

Country: England

Player:Saliba
Well by that logic Arteta deserves massive praise for getting his team selection and tactics right. To be honest even though I like him, I don't think he does. Beating Slavia Prague handily should be standard, that's not taking anything away from the players who played well last night.

Look at Moyes' squad at Everton, with a handful of exceptions you would say they were a fairly middling side. He got them massively over performing.

I know Moyes is treated as a bit of a joke but he's a bloody good manager in certain situations. Take a fairly mediocre squad and Moyes will have them well drilled, defensively stable, hard to beat, playing fairly basics football but getting results. If he has a chairman / board that gets him and is happy with that he'll do a good job.

At Everton and West Ham Moyes made the sum of their squad better than the individual parts, there's an art to that. Just comparing names and reputations in the West Ham squad to Arsenals and saying we're better than them isn't how football works. It about how the squad gels.

The issue with Moyes style of play is that there is ceiling to how far you're going to get playing that way, Europa League max. I'm not saying it'll work, but what Arteta is trying to do is instil a philosophy and style of play that is much more expansive and ambitious. Trying to do that when you have players that may not be up to it technically is challenging as we're seeing.
Good post, but we’ll disagree on the part about Moyes. The ceiling is because of Moyes’s spending capability rather than his style of play.
 

HairSprayGooners

My brother posted it ⏩
Read my post again, I didn’t say any of that. :lol:

And to respond to your post, apart from the richest 3 clubs that have run away with the vast majority of Prem titles, there haven’t been any other managers that have rocked up and won the title with 1,2,3 years. Klopp took 4 years and had to break into the top 3 spending to do it, and that’s been there only title in 30 years. Who are these managers?

But you aren't getting what I'm saying. Lets take Chelsea for example. In 2009 Ancelotti joined Chelsea, he won the title in his first season after spending just £27M. That's all he needed to win a title for Chelsea. 27 million pounds. Chelsea's team had been built up over time through players like Terry, Lampard, Drogba etc.

The point I am making here is that you continuously go on about teams spending more than us, which is fair enough, we shouldn't be winning title after title because our spend isn't up there in the billions. But are you really going to sit there and tell everyone that you think 10 years isn't enough time to make another CL final or challenge for a premier league title? Because that is what you're implying.

If that isn't the case, then you must believe Wenger's recruitment after being able to spend was appalling. We should have won a premier league title between 2013 and Arsène leaving, but he failed to build a team to achieve that despite having the tools to do so. He spent around the same amount as Klopp in a very similar time frame, so you either believe his managing skills deteriorated or his signings were poor.

You can't just defend everything he did and blame everything else around it.
 

AberGooner

Established Member
Trusted ⭐

Country: Scotland

Player:Gabriel
So picture the scene.

Arteta gets us over the line in the Europa League, winning the next three games regardless of how that comes about.

What does that mean for his immediate future for you, does it change any current position you hold on his stay at the club?

I'm sure his objective with the board pre-season was to get CL and he would have achieved that with a Europa win. As bad as we've been this season you can't argue with a European trophy so he'd obviously have to be backed again going into next season, hopefully with the squad in great confidence and we then see where we are in November/Decemberish.

Their has to be massive improvements in our league position though as that is your bread and butter and what you are judged on these days. I'm talking about seriously competing for anywhere between 3-5 in the league, I'm not expecting titles right now. Anything below that is failure for a club like Arsenal at this moment in time. We can't always be relying on Cup wins to scrape into Europe as that's not viable every year even though I'd love us to win trophies every season.
 

Blood on the Tracks

AG's best friend, role model and mentor.
Trusted ⭐

Country: England

Player:Rice
I don't care who the manager is, I will never want anything but an Arsenal win, no matter the match and circumstances. I don't understand the mindset to do anything else, it just seems totally miserable to me, and it is toxicity as I see it that I will tune out of, sometimes mute.

There have been times when I've been so unhappy with the state of the club that I've taken a break from following the club closely to focus on priorities., and not allow them to be affeected. Right now there are definitely positives and enjoyment to find if one wants to with Saka, ESR, Martinelli, and a few others to not make it all about the manager regardless.

I've said it before, sometimes I wish I grew up being a fan of a club like Crystal Palace, without expectations but just for love of the game without the entitlement and toxicity of a certain contingent among Arsenal fans. I get it, there was good and bad with the Invincibles era, especially in that we took on a lot of fans then as Chelsea did later, and City more recently. At times I wish for the club without less expectations earlier that lived the swashbuckling fairytale stuff of Michael Thomas's special goal where we totally beat the odds, happy with that and taking it, not so bothered about droughts for five or so seasons here and there. Some might say this is settling for mediocrity. I say maybe some plasticky fans are bringing bad karma because of their sense of entitlement. Anyway, as @Blood on the Tracks says, it just seems totally backwards to hope for a situation where our transfer funds will be negatively impacted.

A lot of my friends are Lincoln City fans, season ticket holders. When Sincil Bank was open I'd go with them to watch them 7-8 times a season.

It's crap football, a poor club that's never going to amount to anything and has done virtually nothing in their 135 year history.

But my mates enjoy it more than I do being an Arsenal fan I think. They just support their club without expectations.

I went in a minibus with my mates to the FA Cup Quarter Final at the Emirates, we sat in the Lincoln end. There was an older dude there, massive Lincoln fan for 40-50 with tears in his eyes at the end of the match, saying just getting to experience an FA Cup quarter final at the Emirates against a big club like Arsenal was the best day of his time as a Lincoln fan. They got battered by us 5-0.

As Arsenal fans we'll never experience things like that. Made we realise how spoilt I am being an Arsenal.
 
Top Bottom