Setting up improved targets for next year maybe? by Konstantin Mitov
If you are Arsene Wenger in the beginning of a new season talking to Ivan Gazidis for the targets of Arsenal, you’d pretty much know how the conversation goes: IG – Hey Arsene, Top 4 this year? AW – Same as always.
The truth is we are happy with fourth. We’re happy with pretty much wherever we finish, it’s just that the quality we have is usually enough to pull us through the top 4. There’s no pressure on the manager and it seems like nothing changes.
We all know that competition and stress sometimes brings the best out of you. You know, when you are losing to your friend on the darts and you pull yourself up to hit a double 12 and finish the game. I mean internal motivation is hard to get. Much harder than external. Maybe if Arsene is told that 4th is not good enough, we might go further.
I’d set higher standards. We must go past the last 16 of Europe. All English clubs in the CL need to. Simeone made a comment about English teams dropping out of Europe and he has a point. We do need a wake up call. The media in England creates a massive hype around one game or a few wins a row and then goes berserk on a few defeats. We don’t see the bigger picture.
Truth is, Arsenal is doing okay in a league where all the top teams are in decline. Chelsea are running away with a free title. We should be up there with them. We couldn’t go past the last 16 of the Champions League for 5 years in a row – and we had Milan (now sitting mid table in Italy) and Monaco beating us. And Barcelona and Bayern should be teams we can compete with. That should be our aim. Or we can accept being Elite Mediocrity in Europe.
Always having a flair, but never really reaching the potential. Look at Porto, who sell their best players year after year, whopping Bayern 3:1. We are behind. Tactically we are really behind. The pace in England is quick but Europe has caught up. I watched a few games from the German league and cup and immediately you could see how well teams are organized. The pressing is superb.
We take too much time to spot obvious problems. Since Lehman have we not had a decent keeper till this day. We played 3 seasons having only one striker. We leak goals from free kicks for years in a row now. It’s time for a new approach.
Analyze the mistakes in the summer. Buy the missing pieces (GK, another DM to help Coquelin, Theo replacement, maybe a Cazorla replacement, and a top quality striker), make another statement. Go for a big player, just to scare the opponents and put us strong on the football map. Improve fitness, reduce the number of injuries and finally tactics. We won 2 games in Manchester, by not being all out on attack, yet we still feel like a team that can always concede.
A season cannot be won in the summer but it can set a platform. Ditch the Asia tour. Have the players fresh for the start of the season and start strong. Let’s do our homework this time and have a real go for the title next year!
Konstantin Mitov
to aim higher we need quality players…..
we are short of 5 players to challenge…DM, CB, GK, LW and Striker
Release the deadwoods that have no contribution at all….Arteta, Flamini, Diaby, Poldi, Ryo, Sanago, Campbell, Wellington, Walcott, Wilshere and Rosicky
Sell Gnabry, Chambers, Jenkinson, Zalelem with a buyback clause…..
Get well soon Hafiz
Illoris is avaliable..
lets get Illoris
I would much rather we got Cech who at 32 can give us 5 seasons like Van Der Saar when he moved to Man United at 34,this season he has 5 clean sheets from 5 Premier league starts and the season before that he was tied with Szceszny on 13 clean sheets he’s an absolutely world class keeper who would add stability and allow us to win tight 1-0 games!
Illloris at 28yo cant give 5 seasons?
Cech will have a cheaper price tag because of age and the fact that Chelsea can’t keep him on the bench for the rest of his career. Illoris may force his way out at Spurs but Levy won’t sell him to Arsenal and will demand a king’s ransom from the buyer.
Cech at 32 can still give us 5 seasons of top class goalkeeping,we must sell Szcezsny he’s simply not good enough we also need a DM who’s a step above Coquelin like Kondogbia and as good as Giroud has been he’ll never be a 20 Premier league goals striker we need better than him to really make a title push next season!
Illoris at 28yo can give more than 5 season of top class gk…..
Poor Ospina after 2 season on the bench he will leave for regular football
Cech has a better track record, and is far more consistent. But Lloris is a better ‘sweeper keeper’ which suits our high back line a bit better. Either way they a both an improvement on Szczesny, personally I would prefer Cech, for his experience.
I wouldn’t mind Cech instead of Szcz to be honest but it’s not really necessary as long as Szcz stays as second choice.
Kongdognia is not better than Coquelin, especially since Coquelin is exactly what we need namely an enforcer who always puts defensive duties over attack (we have the ball playing attackers already). We do need another DM better than Arteta though.
Giroud is already a 20 goal striker… he scored 16 last season, this season he is at 14 goals and is likely to hit around 18-20 goals having missed 11 PL games. He has the same goals to minutes as Costa and even better than Aguero/Kane (despite their penalty goals, 4 and 2). I’m not arguing who is the best but we can’t guarantee better from those who are available.
Not going to take any credit away from Giroud, I’ve always rated his input, but lets hold fire on the Costa/Aguero comparisons. Costa is in his debut season and there’s no way you can compare Ollie to Aguero I’m afraid, injuries aside he’s the best ST in the league.
All I’m saying is lets have some measured judgement with Giroud and not suddenly think he’s a goal machine (57goals in 127games is good, but not amazing). It’s no coincidence our best players this season have all primarily been the ones who missed the first half of the year (Giroud, Ozil, Coquelin, Ospina).
We could do with another ST if Welbz is destined for the wide forward role. The Higuain link has been rubbished, but he’d be perfect for us as an Eduardo type poacher with all his class.
Arsenal has actually been
the best team in the EPL
since December. And really
achieved this with just 12 players.
Ospina
Bellerin Monreal Kos Mertz Gabe
Coquelin Cazola
Ramsey Ozil Sanchez
Giroud
I think we just have to buy one
player a DM perhaps Schneiderlin. 15-20 mill.
Then select the best 14 from the 23 below.
Szczesney Martinez
de buchi Chambers Jenkinson Gibbs
Arteta Flamini Bielik Diaby
Wilshere Walcott Chamberlain
Rosicky Gnabry Podolski Campbell
Ryo Zelalem Crowley Wellington
Wellbeck Akpom Sanogo
Don’t need to scour the globe the talent
is already here. Just gotta choose
the right ones and sell or release the rest.
I think Welbeck and Ox deserve some due credit also.
I hope we’ve fallen short of our ambitions this year in the eyes of Gazidis and Wenger, there’s no reason to be satisfied with top 4 the last couple of years. Next season it’s absolutely a MUST to challenge for the league, there’s no excuses not to.
The squad is pretty much there – with a DM and either a ST or winger, depending on Welbecks future position, I can’t fault us in personnel. Wenger has to keep up the slow evolution in his approach, and hopefully take it further.
Overall the targets for next year should be very similar to the ones of the last 2, only difference being we have a bigger/better squad and no “monkey on the back” type questions to answer. Big year for Wenger next term, no squad issues or money issues now….time to deliver a title challenging team.
What about Porto? When I said last week that what happened at Porto was merely an accident I was told Lopetegui is a genius and Martinez the best striker there is. I guess that’s true. In Portugal.
Bayern showed Arsenal what it takes to win the CL. The team has to learn how to take opportunities regardless of how easy they are.
next season has to be title/double with fa cup/cl semi at least or nothing else will do for me, wenger’s had three summers including this summer now to try and bring in big names(and he has delivered in the last 2 summer windows) so that’s more than enough time to build a first team capable of winning the league.
the injuries are easing up a bit to for us the medical team + shad are doing a good job on keeping the injuries down and recovery time quicker, time for wenger to deliver next season no excuses anymore everything is in place to do it just get the transfers right this summer and we should go for it if wenger feels he cant take us further forward than this summer after a sit down with the board then.
GET KLOPP IN SIMPLE AS THAT HE WILL NOT WAIT FOR US IN TWO YEARS TIME GUARANTEED! nothing less will do for me, this is a very important period for the club they need to start winning the bigger titles or wenger will never do it again fa cup ok for now, but we need to be at the top like we were promised all those year ago when we moved stadium.
we were told we would compete with the big clubs will put your money where your mouth is arsene wenger/arsenal fc and deliver the goods, and you will be idolized once again without doubt. we will support your last big push for the big honors till the end.
COYG
Three times in a row the FA cup? I’ll sign for this today even if by having that EPL title is not guaranteed 🙂
i have nailed my ambitions/expectations as a expectant realistic arsenal fan on the mast time for arsenal to do the same and win something BIG fa cups are a nice trophy to win(and may we win it as a double) but we are a MASSIVE EUROPEAN CLUB WHO NEED TO STAMP OUR AUTHORITY ON OUR OWN LEAGUE AND WIN IT CONSISTENTLY i hope we all feel the same way or we might as well just accept a certain level where we shouldn’t be at in years time to come just scraping for 1st or 2nd and just and fa cup should be aboslute minimal target in our own football set up and c/l semis at least by next year or 2
excellent article . the entire club ned to lift their expectations , and , so do we , the fans . this season has been amazing so far , i dont care what happens from now on until the seasons end . our club has given us everything this term , lets go one bette next season and lift that premier league title .