Premier League 2024/25: Hamstrung Race

[Nunowoolmez]

Can we just create a "Arteta hate watch" thread so the usual chumps can have their own sandbox? I want to engage in genuine, good faith debate not the tripe I've been reading over the past few pages.

You in the wrooooooong place for that my man

You been on here long enough to know how AM rolls !

 

[DJ_Markstar]

I would argue Arsenal competition is a shiity city, and a Liverpool team with a new manager. Arsenal is the team with the better structure, with 5 years of process and a lot of settled players at his best age. So we are bottling because:

1. Bad squad managing. We have a player like Zinchenko who is not playing at all and the manager didn't sell because "he was to play an important role this year". Yet he spent money in a new LB injury prone. Money we couldn't use in attack. If Zinchenko wasn't in his plans then sell him. Then we have the ESR and Fabio situation, we get rid of them without getting someone to cover Ødegaard. We got immediately punished for that. Nwaneri was underused when Ødegaard got injured.

2. Not using all his subs, not enough squad rotation and late subs post 80th mark. He is so adverse to risk he doesn't trust I'm his squad so he puts some players in red zone so quickly in the season. So we lost to starters for that.

3. Trusting our attack in GJ. Firstly he was never a goalscorer, but after his knee injury he was done. We needed to sell him in summer and get a new striker. Someone reliable and capable of scoring. Yet he didn't sell him and of course he is done without any resalable value. One manager and board with some neurones would sell him for whatever money we could get back once he done his knee.

So these are the reasons why we are in this poor situation and it's a conjunction of things he and the board are responsible of. Not the destiny or bad luck. Ødegaard injury is the only unpredictable injury, but Saka's, GJ and Havertz were all predictable and even avoidable situations if managed well.

That is literally NOT how you use the term bottling. It comes from someone "losing their bottle" i.e. failing because they are nervous at a crunch time.

What you are detailing at great length here is almost the opposite of bottling, you're making the argument that the squad has been poorly prepared. Whether that is true or not, it is NOT bottling definitionally.

 

[HattoriHanzo]

As I said, there is no misfortune, we are in a situation created by the board and Arteta himself. Only Ødegaard injury was due to a bad tackle. All the others are by playing in the red zone which is due by poor squad managing. GJ injury was the most predictable thing. He got two injuries in his knee before. He is done, his career was over. It was Ronaldo situation and yet the board and Arteta decided to trust in his done knee.

To lose 4 attacking playes (Saka, G, Jesus, Martinelli, Havertz) is not misfortune?
Are you serious?

Martinelli wasn't in red zone, he has played 1463 minutes in 22 matches before injury.
Jesus has played only 603 minutes in 17 matches before injury.
How is this red zone?

 

[db10_therza]

Can we just create a "Arteta hate watch" thread so the usual chumps can have their own sandbox? I want to engage in genuine, good faith debate not the tripe I've been reading over the past few pages.

So no we’re not going to do that…

But I can assist you in your crusade. Do you not find it ironic that in one breath @El Realista is criticising Arteta for not rotating and also criticising Arteta for… wait for it… rotating for the Villa game?

Keeping it Realista?

Anyway you’re right that first half we should have killed them off and it was a travesty. Last season wasn’t a bottle there’s not really anyone whose opinion I actually rate that thinks that. We didn’t give ourselves the best platform to succeed in the transfer market but that’s a separate (and ongoing) issue. And we didn’t get enough points in the first half of the season but again that’s not bottling by any sensible definition of the word it’s just not being good enough they are not the same thing.

 

[lufere7]

Will people call it "expected" and a "horrible mismanagement" if Liverpool attackers start dropping like flies to injury in the next few weeks? They have a similar amount of bodies upfront and from what I saw a similar distribution of minutes, does that mean is it inevitable? Or maybe there is a certain element of luck involved

Don't get me wrong, there is a decent amount of human error involved in our crisis, but to pretend it was inevitable or completely predictable is silly to me.

Keep in mind the accumulated fatigue is a huge snowball growing from the start of the season and not of our own making entirely, we lost Merino to a definitionally unlucky injury and then Ødegaard for a while, which meant we had to keep using players like Trossard and Havertz at 8 when they would normally be rested, which in turn made us overreliant on the rest of the attackers. I'd argue a part of the snowball was getting Sterling instead of a player we trusted to rotate and getting rid of both of Ode's backups, which is where the human error comes in, but let's not go full captain hindsight and pretend there's no luck involved in these situations.

 

[Sapient Hawk]

You can't call any run where you have one loss and one draw in 18 matches as bottling in any context whatsoever, its ridiculous.

I shan't move an inch on this, I'm afraid. We had City where we want them, two seasons running & we bottled it.

I know a lot will disagree but this is what I fervently believe.

 

[Sapient Hawk]

So you are telling me we were "primed to take it", we just needed to go 17-1-0 with that draw being getting a point at the Etihad? Is that right?

Almost every single second place in history is a bottler in your mind then, they just needed to win every single game in the second half of the season, the title was in their grasp if they could do it!

The second part of your post is just nonsense, I've never said the 23/24 team should be remembered in the history books, I'm arguing that it's braindead to call our team last season and Liverpool 18/19 & 21/22 bottlers, You have to justify how needing to have a perfect record in the second half of the season to win it is being "primed to take it"

Without a shadow of a doubt. Finishing second is worthless now that 4, depending on English clubs performances in Europe this season, perhaps 5 spots can earn you a place in the Champions League.

1st place gets you the title, 2nd should get you nothing but disdain.

The fact we're arguing this proves that this fanbase has been slowly conditioned to accept it as an actual "achievement" and that is what's truly tragic.

 

[Sapient Hawk]

Which Villa game are you talking about, because at Villa (A) we were incredible even though we lost. Still makes me angry remembering my Citeh colleague saying the next day "told you you would lose!" because we were so good and she knew it. They were horseshit at Villa (A)

The home game, where we, bizarrely enough, reverted to the formation that wasn't yielding results.

 

[Sapient Hawk]

So no we’re not going to do that…

But I can assist you in your crusade. Do you not find it ironic that in one breath @El Realista is criticising Arteta for not rotating and also criticising Arteta for… wait for it… rotating for the Villa game?

Keeping it Realista?

Anyway you’re right that first half we should have killed them off and it was a travesty. Last season wasn’t a bottle there’s not really anyone whose opinion I actually rate that thinks that. We didn’t give ourselves the best platform to succeed in the transfer market but that’s a separate (and ongoing) issue.

Spoilsport

 

[Dennis_Bergkamp_10]

I shan't move an inch on this, I'm afraid. We had City where we want them, two seasons running & we bottled it.

I know a lot will disagree but this is what I fervently believe.

Lol. The fact that you know a lot will disagree is because you know you're wrong but your Arteta hate is too big to admit it.

It would be bottling if we threw a certain thing away. I remember you saying it's over after the West Ham and Fulham results. We then went on a 16-1-1 run to push City to the limits. Nobody expected that run. You can't claim to be out of it in December, needing 52/54 points to win the league, ending up with 49/54 and then classify it as bottling the league because he rotated his squad one game

 

[lufere7]

Without a shadow of a doubt. Finishing second is worthless now that 4, depending on English clubs performances in Europe this season, perhaps 5 spots can earn you a place in the Champions League.

1st place gets you the title, 2nd should get you nothing but disdain.

The fact we're arguing this proves that this fanbase has been slowly conditioned to accept it as an actual "achievement" and that is what's truly tragic.

Stop. I don't care about any of the emotional dribble you're waffling about, I never said 2nd last season was an achievement stop pinning that on me.

From the start this has been a conversation about your definition of bottling, which you've now given, it's just a synonym for runner-up in your mind. Good to know, now I (and hopefully the rest of the forum) will know whenever you use the term bottler it's just a meaningless term that should be ignored.

 

[Sapient Hawk]

Lol. The fact that you know a lot will disagree is because you know you're wrong but your Arteta hate is too big to admit it.

It would be bottling if we threw a certain thing away. I remember you saying it's over after the West Ham and Fulham results. We then went on a 16-1-1 run to push City to the limits. Nobody expected that run. You can't claim to be out of it in December, needing 52/54 points to win the league, ending up with 49/54 and then classify it as bottling the league because he rotated his squad one game

Although I still contend we bottled the last two campaigns, they will pale in comparison if we end up bottling this one to a club, who much like ourselves, operates within its own means & not with the resources of a sovereign nation at its back.

A club, which ended last season 7 points behind us, with a manager new to both country & league, who spent nothing, now leading us by that exact same margin.

 

[Sapient Hawk]

Stop. I don't care about any of the emotional dribble you're waffling about, I never said 2nd last season was an achievement stop pinning that on me.

From the start this has been a conversation about your definition of bottling, which you've now given, it's just a synonym for runner-up in your mind. Good to know, now I (and hopefully the rest of the forum) will know whenever you use the term bottler it's just a meaningless term that should be ignored.

Ignore it all you like. Mind you, it does not change the fact that is precisely what happened last season & the season before that.

 

[DJ_Markstar]

I shan't move an inch on this, I'm afraid. We had City where we want them, two seasons running & we bottled it.

I know a lot will disagree but this is what I fervently believe.

There are those who believe in all sorts of fairytales so why should you be any different I guess.

I would like to see you define bottling and then apply it logically to Arsenal's 23/24 season tho.

 

[Sapient Hawk]

There are those who believe in all sorts of fairytales so why should you be any different I guess.

I would like to see you define bottling and then apply it logically to Arsenal's 23/24 season tho.

Villa at home was a bottlejob, but, in fairness, we bottled it last season long before Villa came to the Emirates.

City went to the club world cup, returned & we failed to capitalise in the several league games we played during that time. The gap was negligible to a degree that, once City went into the lead, there was no chance there were ceding it again.

 

[boonthegoon]

Never thought Arsène as a praying guy

 

[Gooner Zig]

Your poor mind is not capable of complex thinking. So like ancient cultures you need mystical forces to explain what you cannot understand. It's easier to your simple and basic mind to think there is some bad luck in the universe injuring arsenal's hamstrings than thinking this is a Complex pattern due to a conjunction of different decisions.

That's deliciously ironic given your argument is basically "hurrr durrr Arteta bad"

Come back to me with some cogent logic.

 

[boonthegoon]

Also great Arsène wants arsenal to win and supports the team unlike some so called followers of his hoping for us to fail and sack the manager every other week

 

[lufere7]

Ignore it all you like. Mind you, it does not change the fact that is precisely what happened last season & the season before that.

Of course we should all ignore it, let me translate your post according to your definition:
"We finished in 2nd place on the last 2 seasons"

That's it, that's how little substance your post has when your definitions are this stupid. The above is just a statement in fact we all agree on, it says nothing about the mentality of the team because in your mind every single second place is a bottler no matter how good they were mentally.

 

[DJ_Markstar]

Villa at home was a bottlejob, but, in fairness, we bottled it last season long before Villa came to the Emirates.

City went to the club world cup, returned & we failed to capitalise in the several league games we played during that time. The gap was negligible to a degree that, once City went into the lead, there was no chance there were ceding it again.

Let's try this again.

DEFINE bottling, then APPLY that definition.