Alan Shearer slams Arsenal’s unbelievably poor defending after their loss to Manchester City.
Alan Shearer was so shocked at how poor at defending Arsenal was that the former Blackburn striker believes that it could take up to three years before Arsenal can compete at the top again.
Arsenal defence has been severely criticized as the team continues to concede goals that they should be able to defend.
Shearer is of the view that their defence has been a longstanding problem and the Gunners recruited badly in the summer when they failed to fix their defensive issues.
Instead, Arsenal spent more than £70 million on Nicolas Pepe from Lille even though they knew they had a good attack.
David Luiz was brought in to make their defence better, but everyone knows how bad the Brazilian can be when he is not performing at his best.
“Arsenal’s biggest problem is recruitment, defensively they are so bad it’s unbelievable,” Shearer wrote in his column for The Sun.
“Going forward they are fine because they have Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette. But in terms of the quality of their defenders and midfielders they are miles behind the top teams.
“They spent £72 million on a winger in Lille’s Nicolas Pepe, when they knew they had big problems at the back. That made no sense at all.
“True, they were left high and dry when Laurent Koscielny suddenly wanted to leave so late in the transfer window but Arsenal’s defensive problems had been apparent long before that.”
Shearer added that he believes it would take lots of work and plenty of money to get Arsenal back at the top.
“The ease with which Manchester City beat Arsenal shows that the Gunners are miles away from where they used to be — and where they want to be,” Shearer continued.
“It’s going to take a lot of time and a lot of investment to get them competing at the highest level.
“I would say at least two or three years and definitely a huge amount of money.”
As with numerous pundits opining on the Arsenal defence, it is hard to argue with what Shearer has written. The defence is a shambles and there is little confidence that any manager can turn this shower into half-decent defenders.
Arsenal now have no clean sheets from their last 14 games in all competitions, they will face Everton at Goodison Park on Saturday and the fans can only hope for a better performance.
Spot on! Although the whole team need to defend better. Not just the defense! Ita got to the point now where every team knows they can score against us. We almost let them help themselves to the goal mouth. It’s bordering embarrassing how easy it is. I somehow doubt most in the team have any pride or passion. Do they even realise they are referred to globally as players who are simply not good at football? I would hang my head in shame at the way they conduct themselves. No honour and definately no pride. But then, I do blame the board and owners for being completely incompetent!
Every purchase for January and this summer should be replacing defenders and midfielders. TWO new CB’s, new RB (lets be honest, Bellerin will never live up to it), new CDM, two CM’s. NOT CAM’s who nobody even uses anymore. Ozil’s position is essentially dead in world football and doesn’t seem to be making a comeback any time soon. The main problem is of course all the players we have on the books that we need to get rid of, and having enough funds. This is a huge mess and it’s going to take a while to clean up properly. It really blows my mind we wasted even a penny on signing David Luiz, and seemingly prioritized a winger over that spot.
luiz is not a waste….he needs time to settle to the team…hes playing with 10 other unknowns…
he will make a good 3rd choice
everytime he plays he provides the height advantage
3 years is a compliment. I think it will take 5 years.
Josh Kroenke is meetimg Arteta tomorrow to offer him the deal.
Arteta has requested City to terminate his contract. Arsenal will pay 1m
P.S Mikel Arteta is The Kroenke’s family choice.
It was obvious there was some split among the board regarding who should take the job, in the end Josh was always gon be the decider.
Arteta has always been the family’s choice.
Personally, I hope Arteta knows the kind of challenge he’s accepting to face so. I wish him all the best and my support
Look Shearer you look stupid with no hair, you made an awful decision not going to utd, you support a worse team than Arsenal, how on earth can you have an opi6we can take seriously.
Opinion we can take seriously.
MONEY IS NOT ARSENAL’S PROBLEM
I think the time has come to address this long bandied around idea that if Arsenal spends a tone of money then the club will start doing well right away. There is nothing further from the truth. My personal opinion is that Arsenal’s problem is more a matter of recruitment than money. Manchester City has two players who cost over 50M pounds. Otherwise, most of them cost about 50M or less. Arsenal has two players that cost over 50M ponds yet we are where we are.
VVK joined Southampton for 13m pounds in 2015 and was sold for 75M pounds 2 years later. Who did we get around the same time. We got Xhaka (35m), Mustafi (35), Elneny (undisclosed) and so on. Tell me which of these players Arsenal can sell today for more than the amount that was paid for him!
Aubameyang was available and wanting to come to England before eventually joining Borussia Dortmund for about 10m pounds only for us to spend almost six times that amount for a player that was five years older. Mo Saleh was doing his thing in Italy before Liverpool spotted him and paid a paltry sum of 34m for a player that now commands upward of 120m in the market.
Before Leicester won the league for the first time I thought Arsenal should go for Ndidi especially with our problems in the DM position. I do not think we can get Ndidi for less than 50m now and Leicester is doing better than us so why should he join a sinking ship?
Samuel Chukwueze of Villareal has been there for a while now and would cost about half of what we paid for Pepe (no disrespect for Pepe). We could have gotten him for half of Pepe’s cost and could have spent the balance on Nathan Ake to help or defense.
Ming is there at Aston villa now and Ake (Ake is already a Holland international) is there at Bournamount but we are not seeing them. I can bet that in a few years these defenders will be there close to the top. That is when Arsenal will start to look and wonder how they were missed.
Any attempt to solve our problems at Arsenal must involve solving the problem of recruitment. Without solving our recruitment issue Arsenal will not progress.
Great points. This is basically the reason I am against getting Upamecano like a lot of people want. Do we really need to spend 50mill on a 20/21 year old with no EPL experience? How is this the best move for us? In terms of defenders Arsenal should only be looking in EPL. Mings, Dunk, Ake, Coady are all proven EPL defenders I’d rather have.
a club need a good scouting network to get these talented players and a good negotiator
or someone with good contacts like dein or raul to close the deal
Many fans are the same. You keep hearing “WC” when they write about who to acquire. They keep talking nonsense about players having no EPL experience and yet when another club gets those players for cheap and they blossom, we start calling for the club to pay a fortune for them.
Many deride Arteta today because they claim he has no experience. Once another club snaps him and he blossoms, we’ll start asking the board to break the bank to bring him. I remember when BR was rumored to join, many were talking nonsense but hear them today.
exactly…many fans just want a big name or big tag player, to an extend that even a flop at a big club is quality..
the same fans who wanted henry to manage the club a year or two ago….but reject the idea of having Ranieri (proven title winner) to manage
Speaking of possible managerial candidates, I wonder what Lord Bendtner is up to nowadays…
Honestly, does anyone think even Guardiola or Klopp could get our team to perform? I’m glad Emery is gone because his tactics were awful but I don’t blame Freddie one bit for the last few games.
Maybe four of our starters (Leno, Auba, Laca, Pepe) would get anywhere near the starting team of probably the top ten PL teams at the moment. We’re simply shite after ten years of complete mismanagement in defence and midfield. Three CBs (inc. Saliba) and we’re back pushing for top 4. Add a RB and a REAL DM and we’re becoming a team again.
Auba has to be going at the end of the season, maybe January if Real have some injuries. I can’t blame him either. Only reason Laca will stay around is because who would want him at the moment as well. Our midfield buildup due to the broken defence is so awful some of the best forwards in the game can’t get a kick.