Well lovely Arsenal people, I’m sorry, the way we played was pathetic. That performance reminded me of Villarreal and it wasn’t only the yellow kits. We played well 10 minutes and then just died. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother with this.
We were slow, sloppy and lacking energy. It’s unacceptable to be so poor in a semi-final. We looked like the team who is tired – and we cancelled the NLD for that?
Apart from Martinelli, where was the fight? Lacazette was terrible, we’ve shunted out Aubameyang, we sent a bunch of players on loan and we look so confused on the pitch.
We resorted to Partey who arrived with a plane on the same day, only to have him sent off and miss Burnley. I’m sorry, Arteta doesn’t deserve the 150 million he got in the summer.
I have no clue how he is seducing the board to believe in him. No wonder Vlahovic waits for a better offer. I am gutted, for actually expecting something from the team, because every time we are expected to do something we roll over and die.
No fight, nothing. These kind of performances justify why Xhaka is often coming back to the team. It’s pathetic people, Arteta is a fraud, open your eyes. We are going nowhere with him. Another season in the bin.
It’s painful to say it, but look at Conte. Them lot coming back with 2 goals in 1 minute and we’re just strolling on the pitch. Even Ramsdale was pissed, trying to get the ball moving and there’s nobody making a run.
We deserved to be beaten. Out of all cups with shocking performances and unless a miracle happens I can’t see us making the top 4 with this manager. I’m sorry, the sooner Arteta is gone the better.
Konstantin
Arteta discusses Arsenal 0-2 Liverpool, our lack of players and our red card record
Very disappointed to be knocked out the league Cup semi final with a whimper after a battling performance in the first leg at Anfield where essentially the hard work was done. We are now out of all competitions and it’s only January, when you also factor in we’ve had no Europe this season, Arteta has to get top 4. Now we all know this squad needs improving with top quality signings but how confident would you be that he can get us over the line and into the top 4 with those additions? I refer to Chelsea and man u where Lampard and Ole reached their ceiling and took their respective teams as far as they could and have the same feeling about Arteta. Why do we think spurs are a threat to our top 4 hopes? It’s not because they have a great team aside from Kane and Son but it’s because Conte’s their manager and I believe we need a manager of that stature. Say we were to able to bring in Roberto Mancini right now and then sign say, for arguments sake Vlahovic and Bissouma, I would say we would all be very confident of finishing top 4 maybe even 3rd given Chelsea’s current plight.
So why Mancini? Experienced, proven winner who won league titles at Man City, Inter and domestic cups with Sampdoria plus arguably his greatest achievement winning Euro 2020 with a young Italian team after taking over with them in disarray after they failed to qualify for the 2018 World cup. He went in there and rejuvenated them bringing through young talents alongside the experience of chiellini bonucci etc and they played good attacking football and we are In a similar predicament with a young squad on the rebuild. He is similar to conte (who we could of got if we were ambitious and had foresight) he is well respected and will demand the highest of standards from his players and he won’t be afraid to demand from those above(the board) too. He probably goes in the bracket just below Pep Klopp Conte Simeone and Ancelotti
If the board was pro-active they would approach him now. However that’s unlikely, but definitely should in the summer as I feel even if Arteta was to get us top 4 I still worry how we would fare under him in the champions league against the type of opposition in that competition and I’m concerned about whether we can reattain the likes of Saliba Mavropanos Guendouzi Pepe even Martinelli to a certain extent, who Arteta either doesn’t rate or has a problem with. So if you give me a choice between him remaining manager or we get those players back with a Mancini Ten haag or Graham Potter our dugout, I’d choose the latter.
P.s this isn’t a reactionary opinion which i anticipate being accused of by some and I want to firstly state that Arteta has done some good work at the club-when you consider its his first managerial job, most notably this summers 6 signings plus Partey and Gabriel the previous one(maybe he would make a good director of football down the line) winning the Fa Cup and getting to two more semi finals, so he deserves credit for that but then there are things like questionable tactics at times, regular late substitutions, man management I.e treatment of certain players, has favourites even when one in particular is a liability and marginalises others, unable to get us to compete in big games against the better sides let alone dominate against the weaker sides on a regular basis. So when i weigh up all these factors during his time in charge unfortunately the con’s outweigh the pro’s. Its time we started being competitive regularly in the big games and in terms of our final league position and then subsequently in europe. This isn’t about slating the manager or screaming Arteta out, but to progress to the next level I believe we need to add top quality players but most importantly an elite manager in charge.
It’s refreshing to read an “Arteta out” post that’s reasonable and sensible at last, thank you 03G.
I’m an Arteta supporter and I don’t think he’s taken the team as far as he can, actually I feel the team has made good progress this season. We started being smashed by better teams and winning by tight margins against smaller teams. Recently we’ve been convincingly beating smaller teams and giving a good go at top ones. We still lack consistency but there’s big progress compared to where we were same time last year.
That being said I understand your concerns about Arteta. Even though I see elite manager material in him, he’s still very young and hasn’t proven being an elite manager yet. It may take too long until Arteta gets close to his full potential. Arsenal Manager is a big job and may have come too early in Arteta’s career.
I still support him and believe in him but I understand the call for an Elite manager like Mancini now.
My question though to all those calling for Arteta to be sacked now is what happens next?
Let’s be realistic, Mancini just won the euros and has a shot at making history with Italy at the World Cup (if they qualify). He is not going to drop his job now and neither will Ten Haag.
It makes no sense to sack Arteta unless we have an elite manager lined up or he loses the dressing room / has a terrible run of games. ManU are in no better place since the Ole sacking.
We are in the top 4 race, no need to make a panic move because we lost to Liverpool in the league cup. This season can still be a great if Arsenal manage to qualify for the Champions league.
Cheers mate 👍
👍
I disagree with the writer, though we are all disappointed at the loss, there was a fight in the game and we were beaten by a well organised, quality team.
I see a lot of players who look tired/ not match fit.
I feel Laccazet could have done better with the press though, overall the inexperience show, we are known the team is a young one aspiring to be like Liverpool and city soon, we all know we are not in their league yet, so let’s see how they respond.
Every game we played against city and Liverpool this season has ended in defeat and with a red card for us, it’s a clear stat of where we are
I agree. We went toe-to-toe in the first half and looked very dangerous. On the second half, the fatigue showed. We ran out of steam. The squad is paper thin at the moment so I don’t know how we can ask the players to keep momentum going. Only in the premier League now though so hopefully once our squad is back to full strength, we’ll be better placed than others to mount a real offensive. As always, far too much reactionary negativity here.
The author this piece is one of the usual moaners and whiners who regularly pitch up when we have a bad result. A disgraceful article with no attempt to provide any kind of balance or context.
Was proud of the first 10-15 minutes, after that was just sad.
We had a pretty strong team out, but you could see ESR and Tomi were struggling for fitness.
Tactics were bizarre though…
Same old story nothing new and nothing new in transfers January closing in and no one brought in, we’ll probably bring Melo in on Jan 31st and that will be that exciting times 🙄
When was the last time we won this league cup? 1993 for the younger fans. Should we even bemoan our loss? Mikel did all that he could do. For me spring cleaning (or should I say summer & winter cleaning) all the mess and filth that was around our club for over the years and decade is the top priority and he has done extremely well. Sorry Ozil and Kolasinac fans out here, that was the first kid step required to go forward. For me the next step would be to start Mikel’s contract extension talks before he is snapped up by some other top top club.
When was the last time we won a European trophy ? 1994 should we not bother trying to win one the next time we qualify? I wouldn’t worry about the big clubs snapping up Arteta mate there’s more chance of us winning a trophy this season – which is a big fat zero.
You forgot the “Fourth Place Tropheeeeee?” It’s up for grabs!
Good points LC
Unfortunately, it is not easy to move these lower quality players.
Arteta is what Arsenal need right now to build a strong squad,
The carabao cup is a joke comp. The game is forgotten todays fish and chip paper.
Arsenals goal all season has been top 6 and we are on track if we can finish in front of Westham. That’s all we have to do and it’s a great season.
We play Burnley Monday morning while Spurs go to City and Westham go to United. So if results go our way we will be back to 4th, Unted 5th (played one more game), Westham 6th (played 2 more games) and Spurs back to 7th (played one less game). Happy days Gooners
Please no-one take the bait and just ignore
No, please hold my coat while I go after him.
Hahahaha
Agreed. We’ve never taken it seriously and the players obviously played with handbrake to be fit against Burnley
Nonetheless, Klopp and his coaches are definitely far more experienced than our noob manager. A top six finish means we’ve made a good progress and a top four finish means Arteta is a genius, considering our CF problems
Are you and fairfan one and the same person as you “both” come out with some mind blowing comments?
I was here several years before fairfan appeared
When there is little else to play for you need to make the most of what you have, fairfan. Arsenal can’t be choosey when they a literally battling for scraps most seasons. With that said, I doubt even MA sees the Caraboa cup as insignificant because even he knows a final in any competition is great for the fans and the club!
So, please spare us the usual rhetoric fairfan. No one here is flying on the same cloud as you. The team did not perform at the level required to advance further. Liverpool are drilled to win and have a hunger we can only dream of!
Fairfan is the essential counterbalance to the negativity and lack of perspective that is consistently expressed on this site.
Liverpool are currently a better team. They are better drilled mainly through years of practice and they have generally better players
The Arsenal players do not lack the same hunger; this insinuation is an undeserved insult to the players.
@fairfan Errrr do you copy and paste the same sentences over and over again about finishing in top 6. Best you say hope to finish 6th. That’s where you and artetas trophy and success is.
If Arteta were a fraud, we wouldn’t have sat in the sixth position. Imagine if we hired Benitez or Rodgers as some people here suggested, it could’ve been much worse
Conte is lucky to have Kane, a CF type he’s always had at Juventus, Chelsea and Inter. This is why we also need someone like Vlahovic
Of course Guardiola, Klopp and Tuchel are far more experienced than Arteta. Bashing Arteta now won’t help the team and just remember we can only hire a better manager after this season ends
MA would be a great fit for Everton.
I believe Everton and Man City are keeping tabs on him
I believe I am going to be the first and only man on Jupiter.
Yeah, City need a new boot boy! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Where do you get your information from because it sounds very much like you make it up and are trying to sound interesting and informative when you actually dont know a thing
Daily Mail
Lol, so pretty much made up
There was no Xhaka to take one for the team. The second goal was exactly the same move that got Granit red carded for covering the incompetence of others in the first leg.
Always booked for questionable challenges and we have fans cheering for it instead of pressuring referees that we are not okay with them easily booking our player for challenges other players don’t even get a yellow card for.
The first leg performance was lauded and Xhaka vilified as per tradition. It would have been nice for the same people to be men enough and come out to vilify Partey, Arteta and the rest of the team for yesterday performance.
But they haven’t and won’t because it has never been about the performance or individual errors has it?
Unreal. You think getting red carded on the 30th minute is ‘taking one for the team’?
Maybe if its in the dying minutes of the game but in the first 30 minutes ffs! Better be goal down with 60 minutes to go than down to 10 men.
Partey was dumb and needless but his red card was meaningless at that point. 0-2 down at 90th minute, what difference does red card at that point make?
Do you realize he is going to miss the next game because of that meaningless red card? You realize that don’t you?
Yes he took one for the team. He stopped an opponent from scoring and thus we got a draw you so lauded.
Last week you defended Gabriel reds because you said it is normal to defenders than midfielders. One game later when a midfielder who is not Xhaka got red card now you bring up the timing as an attempt to downplay.
OT I am interested to know if you have anything good to say about Wenger, Ozil and Guendouzi.
I know your OT wasn’t aimed towards me, and I’m trying to read less of this site due to the hatred, including some of my own (which I never thought I’d do for The Arsenal)…but, nice things:
Wenger -> The Invincibles (enough said)
Ozil -> dude can play a pass, that’s for sure!
Guendouzi -> Nice hair
I asked him that because some fans must have someone to hate. I have observed most of them (not every fan) who don’t like Xhaka also have nothing good to say about Wenger, Ozil after him, Xhaka now and the likes of Guendouzi as a side dish.
Another characteristic of them I have observed is they are ardent supporters of Arteta regardless of results.
I don’t get why there should always be one player or manager to vilify. Some supporters are consistency in their criticism they don’t pick and choose. Those I believe they care about the results and the club as a whole so I have nothing bad to say about them.
Knowing we had Elneny and Partey going to Afcon, why did Arteta not start the process of a search for new midfield player earlier. We all knew we needed a midfield player. I am let down by that. We could have had a ‘different’ match against Liverpool. Now we face Burnley with an ‘inappropriately weak’ midfield……no foresight whatsoever. Something is not stacking up. Why have we not got a midfield player for our league game vs Burnley…..3 weeks of the window have now gone????
He only just found out they are African
🤣🤣🤣
It is recruitments job to get the new players in not arrest . Over to you edu!
We could have had a ‘different’ match maybe if we bought Modrić lol. Why have we not got a midfield player for our league game vs Burnley? Did you really just wrote that? If you said for the rest of the season, or few seasons or ten years ok, but for one game vs Burnley… Wow!!!
All I’m looking forward to is Sunday against Burnley. Win that game and we’d be back on track with enough rest days to get the squad back to shape.
I honestly cannot understand all this noise about losing to Liverpool. Is it because hopes were falsely raised by the unusual performance last week at Anfield?
Truth is, we are simply not at the same level with them at present, and it may take a while for us to be. Let’s tone down our expectations to realistic goals
Now that I can agree with CorprateMan
I am pretty sure that at the start of the season a large number on JA wrote that top6 was a must. Nothing lower being acceptable and quite rightly. I don’t recall ‘many’ suggesting that top4 was essential for Arteta to retain his job. Some but not many. Considering the standard of City, Chelsea and Liverpool then breaking into the top4 is going to become harder and harder. It will take one of them to have a less than a stellar season to open the door for the other clubs – which includes Arsenal- to stake a claim. There are more than a few circling as the competition gets harder
Losing is never pleasant. The loss to Forest was dreadful. I can’t put losing to Liverpool in the same bracket as that.
Hi sueP I completely understand your pov and your right when you say expectations from fans on where we should finish this season has changed but I believe that’s due to circumstances, so I don’t think it is unreasonable to adjust our targets. When you look at Man utd, Leicester, Aston villa not performing to what was expected at the start of the season even Chelsea are struggling and spurs being spurs there is a real window of opportunity to finish top 4 but as someone who originally open minded about Arteta, as each game goes by I get less convinced he is the man to get us there and that’s even if we make more signings this window. But I always enjoy reading your opinions which are very fair and level headed but most of all respectful 👍
👍
👍
Wengers latter years we struggled against the top sides. He was sacked. Emery never imposed us against the top sides and was sacked. Arteta has never once showed he can bring the consistency we need to be considered a top side. And never will.
I actually felt embarrassed watching that performance last night. I never felt we would get back into it as soon as we conceded a soft goal. We have the players in this squad a top manager can build future success on. Arteta will never be the manager to do this. Most can see this. Others just hope they will see improvement. They won’t. And for anyone accepting a 5th/6th place as success just need reminding of the fact the previous two managers lost their job for failure. Why should Arteta not be held to account as they both were?
There will be a ton of excuses as to why Mikel is exempt from criticism Phil
I cannot wait to hear them Kev- just read @LooseCannon below. He has described Arteta as
Visionary- well I’m not sure if he was looking at what we all were last night but he sure didn’t see too much wrong when it was only all too obvious to most
Mentor-Try telling that to Guendouzi and Saliba.
Talent Spotter- Yeah of course. Mari and Soures anyone!!!!!
Trainer- missed that one somehow. Not sure how you explain Forest Away and last night.
Too many excuses. Arteta feels far too comfortable for my liking. 6th place for a club of our size and with our resources is unacceptable. Why has our bar been set so low?
Oh there’s a few coming out with strange comments this morning Phil, like Dan says below.. it’s all very bizarre how some people rate Arteta after witnessing some horror shows and there’s been a few. Now apparently finishing 6th is a great season ? I can only hope it’s a minority of fans who feel that is acceptable. It’s January and all we have to look forward to is hoping we finish in the top 4 which is still a long shot but of course those who see Arteta as some kind of messiah are quite happy with 6th.
Phil, unable to get results was one of the reasons for our “greatest” manager to get sacked, but the more sober reason was his senile or bizarre player recruitment, the boring back and forth passing, complacency, mediocrity and his inability to adapt to change, having the self supremacy belief/ attitude when we were heading straight into the dump yard and his negative approach of blaming every one other than his players / himself for the numerous spankings. Mikel is the opposite, pragmatic, visionary, trainer, mentor, talent spotter, he needs the right players and the board is right to support his vision for the club.
Matador,magician and I’m reading genius above as well .
🤢🤢🤢🤢
The bizarre player’s recruited by Wenger won Arteta a FA Cup ,if you haven’t noticed we just went out against a championship side with pretty much all players recruited by the matador .
Weird that .
Loose Cannon = Arteta’s propagandist.
Leave visions for saints and madmen .. need a manager with knowledge tactics and drive … arteta has none of these qualities
Look at the table, that tells the truth. Read the list of managers sacked – Nuno, Benitez were the names discussed here. Poch and Chris Wilder were discussed last year. All goners. Finally Poch is winning something in a one horse race, amazing! Ralph Rangnic is limping below us with all the talent he has at his disposal. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
@Loose Cannon
If we are willing to overlook Arteta’s results for the sake of his positive attributes, does this mean football results are not the priority/important at this club? For heaven’s sake we sacked Wenger so that we could challenge for the title, not celebrate top 6! If top 6 was the goal I believe Wenger could have easily achieved it at a fraction of the cost that Arteta will do it for.
Loose Cannon, so far he has signed 17(?) players since taking over – disbanded a team that finished 5th and won the fa cup and CS – finished 8th – knocked out of the fa cup in the 3rd round – become the first manager in over two decades not to have qualified for European football – it takes more than a magician with visionary powers to achieve these kind of records…. but with a slight of your hand, it’s all forgotten and /or just blame everyone else.
well written KEN1945, could not agree more with you. i would count myself as a better visionary than arteta, and as most on here know i am actually blind. enough is enough.i was not a fan of arsene wenger in his latter years, but, the teams that he put out, regardless of which competition we were playing in , never behaved in such a cowardly manner as this bunch did last night.no heart, no passion, no leader, a bad mix , it will ensure that the arsenal are going nowhere,fast.
@Phil
You speak facts 100%. 5th and 6th was never acceptable under Wenger, now it is suddenly considered success under Arteta. Arteta is the worst thing that ever happened to this club in the recent past right. Emery was even fired before he could fail to deliver top 4 again.
What really disappoints me about last night is not necessarily the result more that with 15mins to go when we need goals we are just passing it round the back like we’re winning the game.
I suppose we can now concentrate on getting our 8th place trophy ,so silver linings and all that .
😂😂👍
😂😂Right on. How the mighty have fallen
It comes down to battle for top 4 this season. It’s a mess but it’s not all doom.
I bet if we had to pick between top 4 and cup competitions at the start of this season(especially after those first 3 games), I guess we would all pick the same thing
But we need fixing and we need it fast.
We lack a proper striker, our midfield is a mess, we don’t have proper backup players
Out of the 25 players we registered, I’ll take only 11 players: Ramsdale, Tomiyasu, White, Gabriel, Tierney, Tavares, Partey, Saka, Odegaard, Smith Rowe, Martinelli, the rest are simply not good enough for this club and our ambitions.
Top 4 is still possible but we will need upgrades fast in the transfer window or we may just blow the entire season away
I don’t blame the Patey bloke. Still smarting from premature ejection from Afcon, no surprise dude went for the kill and got sent packing.
MA should have gone last season, simples.
I keep hearing it was Liverpool. Why the meltdown?
It isn’t just Liverpool its an accumulation of bad results and piss poor performances, it’s Brentford, it’s Brighton, it’s Palace, Everton, City, Chelsea, United…. so on and so forth.
How much more of this sh!t show must we take?
Enough is enough… Mr Arteta, if you loved the club as much as you say you do… please go now.🙏🏻
Before I am accused of an Agenda can I just add that I am also fed up with “oh, we were unlucky” and “the team has so much potential”, yes we can see that but these are professional footballers that follow the coaches instructions. So what you see is what MA has told them to go out to do. If it goes pear shaped he hasn’t the capacity to change the plan in-game and makes pathetic excuses when we witness p!ss poor performances, such as last night.
We have good players and if we continue on this MA sinking ship it will soon be “we had good players” as they will see that he is ruining any chance of having a successful career and don’t want to be scrapping for 8th as we have under his stewardship.
There shouldn’t be any excuses this season as we only had domestic competition but what he has achieved is to reduce the squad so heavily that we are now struggling to get 11 players out.
So in my eyes he has failed miserably and we are only in January.
I’m just waiting for the ‘give him till the end of the season and see where we are…’ brigade. Duck the end of the season as the season is now over for us!!
Lets just consolidate what we have and get someone in that can actually train and manage a football team.
We are in a fight for top 4, even third place isn’t out of reach. City and Pool are in the league of their own. And we are doing it with youngest team in the league. So yes we won’t know if we will achieve it or not till the end of the season. Maybe we will and maybe we won’t.
So in my eyes he hasn’t failed miserably yet as we are in a good position to fight for UCL place for next season and if you expected us to fight for a title this year then you are very unrealistic.
👍
why won’t us be beaten? arteta has succeeded in blacklisting players without making effort for better ones. He loan out guendozi, torreira, and amn and prefer the likes of odegaard and lakonga. removal of auba as captain and suspension of few matches is enough punishment imo. but to banish him is rather ridiculous. PL is a a relay race and not cup competition. a good coach will always find a way to carry players along and not to give some the impression that you don’t like their face. another waisted season. another 8th position except if miracle happens.
Arteta needs coaching
Evening all
Sometime it’s hard to read post like this but everyone is entitled to there opinons
We forget Liverpool are a top side even without there star players
We have players who have suffered
and are just coming back
Like most of you here of course I am disappointed that we lost
We understand we need reinforcement. We understand we need to get back in to the flow.
A few weeks ago people were praising the manager and team this week are slating them for being rubbish
We have a great shout for getting in the top 4. This is the focus and has always been. Of course we want a cup but I will take a top 4 spot all day long right now over a cup.
Let’s stand together and get behind them until it is mathematically impossible. Then we can pick the bones out of how badly we need a change
Arsenal can win 12 – 14 more games this season……Arsenal are like a good race horse in a big race….can the jockey pull it off……..
Using your analogy Jakes
Remember that all the other horses in the race have Jockey’s too. Many of them as good as, or even better than ours.
The team is also in the middle of a clear-out. Who knows what impact that has on the rest of the squad.
Maybe the fringe players have begun to see thru Arteta’s
managing style, recognizing that if you suddenly become out-of-favor, you could be for the chop.
I completely disagree with all the immature and unperceptive moaning minnies on here who regularly vent their spleen against MA.
I look forward to tht day when they have such egg on their juvenile mushes that they will look even sillier than they are right now.
Its clear that when fans have an agenda, all common sense and balance flies straight out of the window and out of their biased heads.
Being a balanced fan, I of course agree that MA has made many mistakes, when learning to manage at this level.
But it is also abundantly clear that a markedly new sense of direction from the dismal last few years of Wenger and the mixed messages from Emery is now being actively pursued.
The mountain of long lasting deadwood is being steadily shifted out and replaced by hungry, though inexperienced, younger players and the dressing room is NOW noticeably more harmonious and hungry.
In short, we are on the up but some refuse to see it. They are prevented by their own childish and biased agenda to oust MA .
BUT THEY WILL FAIL AND THAT MAKES ME GLAD!
8th, 8th, and 8th Good riddence
8th, 8th, 6th, bye bye
8th, 8th and 4th, possible re-up
Nothing less!
Hopefully, the team rejuvenates and fights hard to get to the 4th place. We still have games left this season to regroup but must be aware that the Spuds and Man Utd. are making lost ground and also be careful of WestHam under Moyce. But we still need to carry on and fight for 4th.