Mikel Arteta made some very questionable selections against Brighton last week, but he must name the strongest Arsenal XI this time around. Guest post by Sarah Rohan
Hi everybody! I am back! I have come out alive amidst all the Arsenal bashers these past few weeks.
I must admit, the past two games have been like going back to square one. No ideas, weird tactics from Arteta and players not creating chances until it’s too late in the game. Sounds familiar right? Definitely seems like deja vu to me.
To be honest we all knew any injuries were going to disrupt our thin squad and well, unfortunately, it’s happened. It’s clear to see how much we relied on certain players to keep our team competing. You wouldn’t think so with the likes of Saka and Martinelli in the team, but a few injuries and our team look mediocre.
The losses of Tomiyasu and now Tierney are huge and with them both running down the wings crossing the ball in, taking players out of the game, which just shows how much we are missing out on, and it’s taken a huge chunk out of our play. With Tomi hopefully looking to return for either the Chelsea or Manchester Utd game, that’s a positive lift we need, and I believe his return will greatly influence us with the last few games of the season if back to full fitness. Hopefully we aren’t out of European contention by then.
We absolutely must get a result from the Southampton game this weekend. It’s time for Arteta to put his grudges aside and play the benched players to keep us in it!
I am a supporter of Arteta and do believe he has big plans for us and that in the summer if he brings the players in who he wants that he will succeed for our club.
But, right here and now he is, once again, ignoring certain players. Instead of playing players in their position, he would rather take a player out of their position and put them in other player’s places! What is going on in our manager’s head?!
He isn’t doing it because he thinks that it’s the best formation for the team or that they are his best tactics to win the game. He’s doing it because he is stubborn, he doesn’t want these players in the team. He wants them gone! You can more or less guarantee now, Pepe and Elneny will be gone, and Tavares will probably be sent out on loan somewhere never to play for us again. For now we need these disregarded players as part of our team and Arteta to suck it up and just play them, and stop messing around because he has issues with them for one reason or another.
What is the worst that can happen? The worst has already happened. We had three games in hand! Those two games we lost were meant to be the easier run of games to come.
He played an inexperienced player in Lokonga when we have an AFCON finalist and loyal player in Elneny. Strange decision!
I admit I haven’t rated Tavares so far. but how must he be feeling that he isn’t just second choice, he is third choice behind Xhaka! He’d probably be fourth behind Saka as well. He should have got another chance against Brighton to get game time and used to playing back in the squad. He will now have zero confidence going into any games with the scrutiny on his shoulders.
Pepe only getting 15 minutes as usual. It is pretty clear there’s serious issues between the player and manager, with Nicolas next in line for the future headlines of ‘I loved the club, I loved my teammates, but it wasn’t down to me why I left’…
Will Arteta see sense this weekend and play the right team to get a win, whether he likes them or not, or will he stick with his favourites?
Happy Easter to you, my fellow Gooners. Let us hope for an eggsellent result! 🐣🤣