Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has admitted that he has to be ‘careful’ as his side flirt with the possibility of relegation, as his side sit just four points off the drop zone.
The Gunners boss made an incredible start to life in North London, bringing a new hard-working mentality back into the side, and that helped the club to rescue a place in Europe by winning the FA Cup, before starting the new season with a Community Shield win also.
Things have taken a drastic turn of late however, as they have picked up just five points from their last 10 Premier League matches, and while that sounds bad, it is worse when you analyse those results.
Arsenal have been credited with just four goals in their last 10 league matches, two of which were penalties, whilst we have shipped in thirteen goals, suffered three red cards, and shamefully been beaten by own goals during this time.
Our form has now left us in the worrying position of flirting with the idea of battling relegation, having dropped to 15th position in the table, with just four points separating us from the dreaded bottom three.
Manager Mikel Arteta has now admitted that he must be careful not to get pulled into it, and that his team doesn’t have much experience fighting in such a way.
“When you are in this position and you have the points that we have at the moment, you have to look and be careful because we haven’t been a lot of times in this position,” Arteta said in his pre-match press conference (via Arsenal.com).
“I think last year when I came in we were in a very similar position and the same talk was around the place, it is normal because we need to start picking up points and then forget about it and start to look up the table much further. But it is a normal thing to do when you just look at the table and get the conclusions pretty quickly.”
Should Arteta not be more confident that his side will not be at risk of dropping any lower? Could our players be able to bring the necessary attitude to fight if we were dragged into such a dog-fight?
Patrick
Wouldn’t call it a similar position. We were not in 15th place, losing home matches repeatedly, and looking lost at sea.
Emeryball was too defensive & boring, but never this dire. Arteta needs help; assistant manager to find solutions Arteta clearly can’t. Convince him to sit underperformers and give players like Balogun and Saliba a chance at least.
Arteta trying to convince the world Saiba is not ready, Balogun, and Martinelli won’t fire us forward. Yet he believes Nketiah is, along with Willock, and Willian is a solution not one of the problems.
I want the club to turn things around, but his decision making has to confuse and confound players as well.
I don’t expect a win against Chelsea, just show spirit and fight. If we lose to Brighton, then he has to go. If he can’t get a response against them then who?
Some people find excuse for MA that he was forced to have Willian and Luiz. They blame Edu for signing Willian and renewing Luiz. They say it is not MA’s fault.
Arteta was given Saliba but he don’t rate him and don’t play him at all. He was given Willian and Luiz but he keeps playing them. If they were forced on him by Edu, why can’t he do the same like the did to Saliba and not play them?
Good things they say it is MA. Bad things the say it is Edu. Convenient excuse and find a scapegoat to protect the manager who brought us from mid table to near relegation zone.
Every single one of our players that we have bought have produced better football at previous clubs than ours. If they are not producing now then the man at the top isnt able to get the best out of them. How can people not see that we have so many players under performing. Not one or two ALL not performing the reason is they are not being motivated or utilised properly, that falls on Arteta.
As sad as it is we have to accept that Project Arteta has failed. He speaks very eloquently, but hs words dont seem to be working. FACT 1: It’s is first head coaching job; FACT 2 He is losing matches at a frightening frequency. He also seems unable to motivate players (witness some very sad ambling performances from so many)…that it his job. Any other coach without the emotional tie to Arsenal that MA has would be out the door by now. We are now in a relegation scrap and need a tried and tested premier league manager (Benitez? Pochettino? Redknapp? I know I know) who isnt learning on the job for the first time, and can motivate players. It’s that, or I am afraid, accept with a high probability that we will be playing Championship Football next season. (Note: there is one alternative, and that is buy in top class recruits in January – 3 mid-fielders required, x1 DM and x2 creative mids. But we know that will never happen with the tight purse strings of our owners).
I dont say it gladly, i thought he could have been the new start we needed but i was wrong.
Reggie, I dont say it gladly either. But in any performance culture, the type of results he is turning out are not sustainable. I could probably cope with the ‘luck’ thing if I felt he was motivating the players but too many performances suggest not bad luck but lack of belief and support from the players. He reminds me of an old boss I had who talked a beautiful game upwards and outwards, but had no idea how to relate to his subordinates in his team. For a while the talk kept him in his job but after results deteriorated (we felt no leadership or purpose) he was fired.
Arteta can have a PSG team and still not trust the players enough to play free flowing football.
I don’t think he will ever change his ways or tactics.
Many of the players we have would walk into the starting lineups of any of Europe’s big boys.
I mean look at Brighton and how beautiful their football is. They’re just very very unlucky.
We dont have to look at the log? Really? If he was leading the log at the moment, he’d be talking about it. I hope that he’s joking by no checking the log standings