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Post-Season Discussion 2018/19

YeahBee

Terrible hot takes
And I have now totally fallen of, pursued the High horse and lost it.

I want some richie rich to shower us with money,

Football is dead anyway, might atleast win
 

Sapient Hawk

Can You Smell What The Hawk Is Cooking?
Trusted ⭐

Country: Saudi Arabia
The euphoria at the start of last season has certainly dissipated over the past several days & with good reason.

What have we to show for that early promise?

1. A pathetic collapse at the end of the season when we were pretty much guaranteed CL football if we had just won 1 of our remaining 2 home matches only to put in equally back to back horrid performances to let it slip away.

2. A proper thrashing in a final where we supposedly had the greater impetus to reach the CL & the players to deliver the trophy to us.

3. A Management, on the surface seems to say the right things to keep fans fears from falling into obscurity assuaged yet in reality are clueless about doing that exact thing.

  • An absentee owner with a less absentee but similarly clueless son.
  • A head of Football Relations who I'm not quite certain knows what responsibilities fall on him alone.
  • A head of Finance who seems the obedient lackey type.
  • A manager, who admittedly has to work with a lot of dross, but doesn't inspire the greatest confidence in taking the club forward.
4. For all the talk about our promising players in the youth setup we barely had a glimpse of them, but what we did gave me reason to hope the future, if built on these lads & calculated signings going forward, we can build something resembling a team we can be proud of wearing the shirt.

If we're being honest, Emery should've been sacked after the final whistle on the back of, not just the loss in the final which was beyond turgid, but also the late season collapse when he arrogantly let the momentum fizzle down after believing we'd already secured the Europa League. A case of gross misplaced arrogance if there ever was one.

Horrid season. 3/10
 
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krengon

One Arsène Wenger
Trusted ⭐
4/10 for me..

Highlight was our performances in big away games, we genuinely played those matches really well and were competitive, a good sign going forward. Results in the big games in general was good too.

Worst for me if we look past failing to meet the target, was our football.. Was a chore to sit through a lot of our games and I hate feeling like that, when the results doesn't compensate for it either it becomes so much worse.
 

The White Pelè

Human Highlight Reel
I'd say 5/10. There has been some improvements, especially in the big games, but the last month of the season has shown how we are still miles behind the top 5.
 

Tir Na Nog

Changes Opinion Every 5 Minutes

Country: Ireland
It was all going so well and then we completely ****ed it. I think we were on course for a 7/10 season at the very least provided we sealed CL football but that's all gone to ****e now. It's so frustrating. You'd have thought with the performances vs Chelsea, Sp**s, United, Napoli that we'd have kicked on and just sealed top 4. It's actually unbelievable looking back. I'd say 6/10 just because we SHOULD have got top 4 which is a lot better than 17/18 were we weren't even in the race and of course getting to the EL final deserves some credit.
 

RacingPhoton

Established Member
We were doing well in the initial part of the season purely based on the brilliance of Laca and Auba. Emery was doing some great subs. Everything went south once other teams found our weaknesses and started exploiting them. They realised that if our defenders and mid-fielders were pressed hard, we are not capable of handling it well. We just gave away the ball on high press which led to goals. Even if we held on to ball, there was no use of it as we did not have the pace to transition to attack quickly.

Losing Bellerin and Holding did not help.
Playing with 3 at the back did not help. If we are going to give away goals for fun anyway, what's the point of having back 3? We could have just put up more numbers on attack.
My rating 5/10

At least now, we know where our problems lie and we can have a clear idea of what identify how our next season is going to turn out purely based on our summer transfers. I am more interested in our outgoing transfers than the incoming transfers. Players who can't even hold possession around our D-box can **** off. Players just loitering around to have fun with no pride whatsoever for wearing the badge can **** off. If the clear-out is not good, it means we are still too soft on players and we haven't learned a lesson. In that case, we can clearly say that our next season is doomed.
 

dashsnow17

Doesn’t Rate Any Of Our Attackers
Trusted ⭐
And I have now totally fallen of, pursued the High horse and lost it.

I want some richie rich to shower us with money,

Football is dead anyway, might atleast win

Someone said in a podcast there recently that we’re the worst of both worlds: we’re no longer a local club with a spiritual home and owned by supporters, but neither are we a giant corporate winning machine. We’re a corporate machine that doesn’t win.
 

OSBK

Established Member
Where we are is where we deserve to be. I actually think 5th place is good considering how bad the team is. The humilation in the el was not surprising, from the top to the bottom in the club we have lost our way even more.

The manager is probably a good manager but it looks like he has no say on who stays or goes and who comes in. I would even question how much pressure he is under to play certain players. In wenger we had a man who ran the club, in emery we have a man who is a puppet.

The team itself is not a arsenal team. I was speaking to a guy who played at leeds when lukic was there and he said when lukic left they were not surprised. Lukic had a arrogance and class about him. I dont see that in any of the current players but i see it in other top teams all over the pitch.

The owner, i dont get it. He is trying to make arsenal a better brand which is great but they dont know anything about football. I think city have 4 head/directors of football who work with pep and look at the results. For kronke if he wants to go that next level he needs to employ the best people, not a Vieira or edu because of the name but the actuall best out there. Gary neville recently had a rant about utd and i have paraphrased him alittle, but that speech about utd rings so true with AFC.
 

kraphtous

Raul Stanllehi
We have somehow become worse defensively and haven’t improved attacking wise either. Most of our goals come from the individual quality of our strikers rather than natural build up from the whole team. Results wise, thanks to those individuals we managed to salvage some more points than we deserved. Over reliance to create chances from our wingback caused some incredibly dull football on top of all that. Very little progression from our youth players, despite poor results from the adult players. Signings have been mostly good.

Hopefully a new set of players can make next season more exciting and better for us. But I have serious doubt we will improve under Raul Sanllehi’s regime.
 
We all knew this wasnt going to be an easy seson and im not sure about Emery and his tactics after this season but he can have another go for me. What i would like to se from Emery now is to kick out all deadweight of players that doesnt bring hard work to the game..
Also needs Emery to decide if he wants 3 or 4 in the backline! Decide and stick to it and for me it would for sure be 4 in the backline cause we defend terrible enough with that..

IM also afraid that if not the board and Kroenke stop misstreating our club we will in a couple of years not be close to even EL rather we will be a team struggling in the middle...
 

RacingPhoton

Established Member
We have somehow become worse defensively and haven’t improved attacking wise either. Most of our goals come from the individual quality of our strikers rather than natural build up from the whole team. Results wise, thanks to those individuals we managed to salvage some more points than we deserved. Over reliance to create chances from our wingback caused some incredibly dull football on top of all that. Very little progression from our youth players, despite poor results from the adult players. Signings have been mostly good.

Hopefully a new set of players can make next season more exciting and better for us. But I have serious doubt we will improve under Raul Sanllehi’s regime.
True. Looking back at it, our strikers solely carried us throughout the season. I couldn't find a single other player who contributed so much throughout the season.
 

dashsnow17

Doesn’t Rate Any Of Our Attackers
Trusted ⭐
Where we are is where we deserve to be. I actually think 5th place is good considering how bad the team is. The humilation in the el was not surprising, from the top to the bottom in the club we have lost our way even more.

The manager is probably a good manager but it looks like he has no say on who stays or goes and who comes in. I would even question how much pressure he is under to play certain players. In wenger we had a man who ran the club, in emery we have a man who is a puppet.

The team itself is not a arsenal team. I was speaking to a guy who played at leeds when lukic was there and he said when lukic left they were not surprised. Lukic had a arrogance and class about him. I dont see that in any of the current players but i see it in other top teams all over the pitch.

The owner, i dont get it. He is trying to make arsenal a better brand which is great but they dont know anything about football. I think city have 4 head/directors of football who work with pep and look at the results. For kronke if he wants to go that next level he needs to employ the best people, not a Vieira (not Viera ffs) or edu because of the name but the actuall best out there. Gary neville recently had a rant about utd and i have paraphrased him alittle, but that speech about utd rings so true with AFC.

Agree with all that, but how is Kroenke even growing the brand? I don’t even know if Sanllehi sincerely believes what he said when he spoke about the pulling power of Arsenal’s brand.

On the street obviously our brand has been trashed for years, but I’d say at corporate level it must now be plummeting also. Even someone as distant as Kroenke must know that.

I just don’t understand how the owners, who are evidently experienced businessmen, can’t see how they need to act to halt their brand’s decline.
 

OSBK

Established Member
Agree with all that, but how is Kroenke even growing the brand? I don’t even know if Sanllehi sincerely believes what he said when he spoke about the pulling power of Arsenal’s brand.

On the street obviously our brand has been trashed for years, but I’d say at corporate level it must now be plummeting also. Even someone as distant as Kroenke must know that.

I just don’t understand how the owners, who are evidently experienced businessmen, can’t see how they need to act to halt their brand’s decline.

I should have said tried to grow the brand but your right.

The pulling power is a great one and looking back through the years all of the top talent in europe wanted to come to arsenal. Now there are so many more attractive clubs in europe than us.
 

Country: Iceland
I would give it 4/10 but the humiliation in EL final and not managing top4 at home against Brighton or Crystal Palace put it down to 2/10.

Didn't enjoy the football this season, players regressed, 20% possession away against Leicester, 5 man defensive system at home against bottom 10 teams, no improvement in pressing or defending, away form still ****. Uninspiring attacking football. Its just very clownish overall.

Huge task for Emery and his Spanish speaking coaches in the summer to turn this around but after seeing Emery forcing Sven out so he could be the main head of recruitment and what players we have been linked with I'm not overly excited for next season either.
 

StrangerThanParadise

Active Member
Very bitter and disappointing end to the season. Emery of course gets one more season but I’m losing confidence in him after Wednesday and this complete capitulation in the league when CL qualification was all in our hands. Some positives were the game plans he managed to implement against the bigger sides, highlights for me were Sp**s, Man Utd and Chelsea at home in the league. But please god move away from this 3 at the back, we’ve looked more open playing this way. Also, hopefully this over-reliance on Kolasinac is just a poverty of options rather than an ongoing feature of his tactics.

Hopefully a large clear out in the summer is on its way and if we manage a few interesting signings in the summer plus promoting a few youngsters I will be happy going into next season. I would personally move Laca on, neither him nor Auba have shown themselves thus far to be on Alexis’ level so I don’t see why they should be seen as irreplacable, we could reinvest in the defence, midfield and maybe wings and I think we may find ourselves a more balanced side going into next season.
 

Giroud12

Active Member
Without the collapse in the last few weeks, and with top 4 and possibly the EL trophy that we should have had, I´d say 10/10. However, as things turned out I´d give Emery 7/10, the players 3/10, and the owner 1/10.

It seems that Arsenal fans think we have some god given right to top 4. Looking at our squad, even fully fit, I would say its the 5/6th best in the league. Therefore, we are right were we belong (sadly).

This season seems more dissapointing than it really was because Emery overperformed for the majority of it. If someone had sad that we would end a point from 3rd-4th and hammer the runner up in Italy and the number 4/cup winner in Spain in the EL, I think most fans would deem that respectable. In hindsight the collapse at the end doesn´t reflect good on Emery or the team, but over the course of the season we have done as good (or bad) as can be expected.

The injuries played a key part here. Some would say "injuries are part of the game", but there´s some nuance here.

What players get injured - squad players or key players?
How serious are the injuries?
What back up do we have?
Can we replace players in January?

We got hit in the very worst way. We lost key players, for a very long time, had poor back up options, and no money to replace them. Without Holding, Ramsey, Bellerin and Welbeck our squad is not that much better than Wolves or Everton. With Ramsey, or with a replacement RB coming in in the January window, I am certain we would qualify for CL either through the league, EL, or both. Take 3-4 starters out of Chelsea or Sp**s and they certainly wouldn´t make top 4.

Judging a manager with the squad we have seems a bit unfair. What players would start for other top 6 clubs? Auba or Laca would replace Jesus at City, Ramsey would replace Firminho at Pool. Leno, Bellerin, Torreira, Laca and/or Auba would probably get playing time at Sp**s, Chelsea, and Man U.

If we had hired Pep or Klopp this season, we would still be lightyears away from competing for the title, because those managers don´t compete on a shoestring budget. They would still have to give significant playing time to Özil, Mkhi, Iwobi, AMN, Mustafi, Xhaka and Lich.

IF (a big if) Emery is backed in the market and we don´t see any progress, I would be all for sacking him, but if he´s given 40 mill to spend it´s unrealistic to expect much progress.

On a positive note, we have looked much better in the big games. We beat Chelsea, Sp**s and Man U with two goals at home and were the better side against Liverpool. We were very unlucky in the big away games, where a horrible offside decision, a Mustafi brainfart and a missed penalty only gave us a point at Sp**s, an offside goal, an own goal and clear red cards for Fellaini and Rojo not given only gave us a point at Man U, and Auba and Iwobi missing 5 sitters at Chelsea cost us the victory. Hardly Emery´s fault.

We still look horrible defensively, but then again what can you expect when we gave significant game time to Lich, Mustafi, Monreal, Kola and AMN, and even had to play Xhaka at CB? Obviously Emery doesn´t rate Mustafi, and I am sure he asked for money for a replacement.

The biggest dissapointment this season were the so-called experienced players like Özil, Mkhi, Mustafi and Lich. All of them were horrible for most of the season and would not look out of place at Huddersfield. Also the likes of Xhaka, Iwobi, AMN, Monreal and Kola were underperforming.

The sooner our fans realize that changing manager is not going to change anything, the better. Our problem is that we have an owner who himself has said that "you should not be in this to win trophies" and a completely unorganized structure at the top. Until those things change, nothing else will. We could hire Allegri, Vieria, Arteta or whoever - without backing in the marked they could never bring us back to where we belong.
 

Trilly

Hates A-M, Saka, Arteta and You
Trusted ⭐

Country: England
The good:

Potent strike force, usually the most difficult type of player to buy so the rebuild shouldn’t be too hard (ha!).

Seem to be able to raise our game for the big games now. Very close to some memorable scalps away from home.

Put more points on the board.

Leno seems like someone we can get behind.

The bad:

Losing Bellerin and Holding who were replaced with guys who probably directly cost us around 6 points? And that’s being conservative imo. The indirect costs of those injuries are probably much bigger.

Manager loves attacking fullbacks. Yet it’s one of our weakest areas.

Still don’t have a midfield that ticks all boxes on paper.

Worrying trends in XG and XGa that suggests we were never really that good in the first place

The ugly:

Mustafi

The worst run in I’ve ever witnessed in my life

Humiliating loss in a match that our entire season depended on while the opposition were already thinking about Hols.

Giroud holding the trophy screaming “Thank you Arsenal”. ****ing ****.

Summary:

On paper he just about earns another year to prove himself but I’m not expecting much. I was willing to forgive everything else due to transition/injuries/poor budget but anyone who can bottle a run-in like he did isn’t a manager worth having imo.
 

Hunta

Established Member
Trusted ⭐

Country: England
tenor.gif
 

Gooner Zig

AM's Resident Accountant
Trusted ⭐

Country: Canada
It was all going so well and then we completely ****ed it. I think we were on course for a 7/10 season at the very least provided we sealed CL football but that's all gone to ****e now. It's so frustrating. You'd have thought with the performances vs Chelsea, Sp**s, United, Napoli that we'd have kicked on and just sealed top 4. It's actually unbelievable looking back. I'd say 6/10 just because we SHOULD have got top 4 which is a lot better than 17/18 were we weren't even in the race and of course getting to the EL final deserves some credit.

1 point against Everton, Crystal Palace, Wolves, Leicester and Brighton when top 4 was on the line

It's just incredibly bad and a huge black mark on Emery.
 

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