A win away is nice, but Arsenal’s rotten foundations still need to be fixed

Southampton gift gives Arsenal a much needed victory by Konstantin Mitov

Good morning, evening, afternoon, or whatever time it is for you, lovely Arsenal people. We won a game away from home! Honestly I wasn’t too interested in the game as we’ve destroyed our chances to get a meaningful European spot, but as old habits die hard, I did watch it.

As you can expect in recent years it wasn’t a vintage performance. Most of our chances weren’t the result of brilliant play, but rather opposition mistakes which was honestly a welcome sight, because usually it is our players making the mistakes. Auba hit the post from a long ball from Tierney I think, and Martinez also released Auba once who just failed to find Nketiah. Apart from that, we had a nice cross to Nketiah from Saka in the beginning who was unfortunately offside and that’s pretty much it.

That is against a team with one of the worst home records in the league. If it wasn’t for a great save which Martinez made against Long, it could’ve been Brighton all over again. I am sorry if I sound depressed, but my expectations have dropped lower than the tuning of a death metal bands guitar player.

What the board have done by giving Luiz a new contract is baffling. Cedric hasn’t played once if I remember correctly, how did he earn a new deal? Pablo Mari hasn’t played too much either, what’s going on here? We’re being taken for a ride by player agents. This is charity at it’s finest. None of those players have proved good enough for Arsenal. While you could give some the benefit of the doubt, others have well proven that they shouldn’t be anywhere near the squad.

The fact that we are giving them a new deal means one of three things. One is that we think they can improve, which is laughable honestly, two is that we don’t believe we can find better, which is again a joke and three, and you guessed it, we don’t wanna spend money. It’s either because we don’t have it or we want to spend somewhere else, but I’d start with where the problems lie and the defense is right up there.

Sadly, not much changed in midfield either even though Xhaka returned. This isn’t a surprise really. We have Ceballos who had 2 good games for us and that’s it, Guendouzi, who started promisingly, but failed to improve and has problems with the coach, Torreira who wants to leave England and Ozil (not worth even mentioning). That’s our midfield. There is an incredible lack of creativity in an area where we used to thrive and have like 5 players capable of carrying the ball forward and create chances.

It’s visible from space that we’ll trust the youngsters next season and I do like Eddie and Saka. Willock could be a handy player too, but what’s up with Martinelli? [Sorry Konstantin but he has a serious injury – Admin]

I like the smile on Arteta’s face, but I question his ability to get the best out of the squad he has, and I’m really worried if he’ll be able to get the players to improve us. He had 100+ days and we are doing worse than we were before the break. It’s true those aren’t his players, but who are we linked with?

If the information is correct we offered Willian 250k before the Covid-19 to join us and that’s because he’s free. Now, I’d take him in a heartbeat in our current side, but at 31, can’t we spend money better than that? Can we not go for players other teams are trying to get rid of?

In other rumors we’re trying to get Thomas Partey from Atletico and he’d be a welcome sight, but I’m not sure we’ll pull it off as reports suggest 45 million will be the price. We would still need a creative midfielder and no, Mesut is not an option. Giving him a new deal would be the circus crown. He simply has to leave Arsenal as do Mustafi, Luiz, Xhaka, Bellerin, Torreira, Kolasinac, Cedric, Guendouzi and unfortunately Lacazette too.

Those players for various reasons failed. Maybe injuries, maybe mistakes, maybe not enough confidence, maybe they had a promising start but never reached their potential, or they were never really good enough for us.

The current crop is full of softies. We need to be ruthless. It’s what winners are made off. This is why I was crying to get a man like Simeone for the job.

Liverpool dumped Karius when he failed them. They got Van Dijk to solve their defense. Money was spent wisely there. Not that they didn’t spend before on the likes of Carroll and Benteke, but those players don’t get you far, and that’s why a manager like Klopp had to come in and replace them with quality.

We spent a lot, it just was at the wrong place. Which now points to the board. Raul and Vinai, have shown nothing to prove they are good enough to run Arsenal. We are not Barcelona. They will be successful pretty much regardless of who had Raul’s position there. And Vinai is a marketing man.

But one last thing I want to address is the statement that those who wanted Arsene out got what they deserve. It’s Arsene who left the club in shambles with just 4 or 5 away wins in his last season. He sold Sanchez and Van Persie to United, Adebayor to City, Fabregas to Barca and so on. He made us incapable of defending. He left us losing 6:0 away and always said it’s just a bad day at the office, when it was a reoccurring theme.

We are where we are largely because of him and we get what we deserve for ignoring the problems for years, and now others are left to clean up his mess, so please just don’t go there. This is living in the past, and there is a very dark present which needs to be addressed.

We should be building on a strategy how to improve the situation next season, because this one is finished regardless of our gifted win. Sadly you can’t build on rotten foundations, yet instead of ripping them out of the ground, we’re rewarding them with new contracts.

I am extremely sorry to all of you for being negative and I will gladly accept the blame for that. It’s just hard to find something positive to catch up to. I’m all about the results, but results matter in a context, and in ours, this one is irrelevant.

In our position we need to see a game plan. A plan for the future. Make a good assessment on players that will be used next season and those that will be removed. This is what worries me, but at least I don’t have to read more messages from Chelsea and Man Utd fans for a few days.

Hope all of you are doing better! Enjoy the rest of your week.

Konstantin

10 Comments

  1. Why so much criticism of Ozil? Definitely he does not deserve that. If his attitude is a problem, what have Ceballos, Belarin, Pepe, Laca done to deserve their places? Give the man a chance, atleast for the sake of what he has contributed to the Club and for the sake of his undisputed talent, and he will prove his doubters wrong.

  2. Sign Asensio, Partey, Nabil Fekir, Lewis Dunk. The midfield is the problem. Creativity is the issue. Also, Since David luiz is with us for another season, we should play him as a Defensive Midfielder.

  3. You hit the nails right on the heads. On point and firing on all cylinders.
    I couldn’t agree with you more @AdminPat

  4. I don’t understand what’s your issue with Pablo and Soares getting new contracts. You can elaborate. In Arteta’ five win streak Luiz played in all the games and you had no issue. He is the most experienced defender we have now and besides the nightmare last week I think he has done well.
    Your post is just full of anger but pointless.

    1. Victor, the article by Konstantin is not “pointless”; the point is that Raul, Vinai and Edu are showing that they are incapable of the player and financial management required to lift Arsenal back to the top.

      1. Yes mainly because the club is being run by super agents who are foisting their dross on us, one of the agents being Raul’s agent too.🤔. Agents are the leeches feeding off football and we have let them into our once great club.

  5. I suspect Arteta would love to unload the likes of Sokratis, Mustafi and others and bring in quality upgrades in defence and midfield. Soares and Mari have been acquired, not as first choices, but as back up squad players.The fact that they did not cost a fortune, and that they were available , just about tips the scales in their favour.In the case of Luis however, regardless of his popularity and his engaging personality to extend his contract beggars belief.We have Saliba, Chambers and Mavroponas waiting in the wings, in addition to Holding who was excellent yesterday and get we “waste” around 100k per week on an aging, slow, error prone DM. Yet another, costly error of judgement by our money men in whom I do not have confidence.

  6. I meant CB not DM , a position where Luis could have been effective perhaps, five years ago, but not now.

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