Arsenal’s campaign has not gone swimmingly thus far, and with us on course to fail to qualify for any of the European competitions for next season, we could well be in for a rough summer window.
With that in mind, the manager may well be forced to reconsider his stance on certain players who have so far been frozen out, with Matteo Guendouzi and William Saliba both players who will boost our squad.
The pair were both at the club in the opening months of the season, but neither featured for a single minute in the senior side, nor did they make the bench at all.
Guendouzi eventually joined Hertha Berlin in the Bundesliga, where his ability has shone through, while Saliba waited a little longer until January before leaving to return to Ligue 1, where he has also earned plaudits for his performances for Nice.
The players’ treatment by Arteta may well have a knock-on effect for both as they consider what to do for the new season, but the manager way have to be told to suck it up.
Should we fail to climb into the Europa League places, or maybe even the European Conference League, our summer could well get complicated.
Certain key players could ask to leave the club, with Alexandre Lacazette only having one year remaining on his contract come the end of the campaign, which could well force our hand a little, while Bernd Leno and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang could also be considering their futures.
On top of that, without the pull of European football, and the known financial implications of failing to even qualify, things could be extremely difficult this summer.
This could well mean that the manager will have to stretch those who are already at his disposal, and players like Guendouzi and Saliba have already shown their ability elsewhere.
I struggle to see how Arteta can allow Guendouzi to leave, with Dani Ceballos set to return to Real Madrid when his loan ends in the coming months, unless somebody else in the academy is ready to make the step up.
There has been plenty of talk about Miguel Azeez from the academy, but with only a seven minute cameo in the Europa League, the manager is hardly telling us that he believes he is ready to make the jump.
These players simply have to be given the opportunity to play in the first-team squad next season, and Mikel Arteta may well have to be told that he will either need to unearth an unknown gem from their scouts’ endeavours, or bite the bullet and rely on those already at his disposal.
Can anyone see Mikel Arteta accepting Guendouzi back into his first-team squad? Does Saliba need to be given a first-team role regardless of our finishing position?
Patrick
This season’s first-team deep-lying midfielders are obviously chosen based on experience and seniority, hence those places are allocated for Xhaka, Partey, Ceballos and Elneny. Xhaka, Ceballos and Elneny might leave, so Guendouzi and Willock could fill the first-team slots
About the CB slots, I think Luiz will leave. Saliba and Mavropanos would likely compete for that spot
Coquelin improved because of his loan time, so I expect our loanees to come back strongly as well. Especially Willock and Saliba
Alex Song too came back stronger and gained valuable experience
Yeah, too bad we sold him to Barcelona and his career has been disappointing ever since
Arteta has no interest in young players
He just chanced on Saka and ESR
Look at how he’s treating Matinelli and Folarin and even Aziz and compare him to what Man U manager is doing blending a lot boys in
Instead of bringing in the youth at this time of the season he chooses to bring his beloved over 30s
Arteta won’t take us anywhere
Does anyone else think that James Ward-Prowse would not be a bad signing for Arsenal? Homegrown, great at set pieces and puts in a shift. Could be the perfect foil for Partey if he is to play as a DM?
Boy oh boy, it’s been a long stressful couple of weeks for me due to work.. I barely saw our games, I missed a whole lot. I should be rounding up my work this weekend so I’ll have the chance to surf the net and make comments.
We’re out of the Europa league, I gotta say I wasn’t expecting that tbh but it’s happened, and when I heard the score was nil nil. I said to myself oh well that’s bad, but then I remembered our position in the league, and I said to myself “very good then”.
If you know me, you’d know for the past three years I’ve always talked about how I don’t want us playing in the Europa league if it ain’t the UCL. Yeah it’ll being extra money, but it’s also a stressful competition, so am I losing sleep we ain’t gonna be in Europe next season?? No I’m not, I’m glad btw, it means Arteta and his staffs gets a full season without distractions fr Europe and having to rotate.
If he doesn’t make the top four next season with less games, then he should be replaced.
I’ve always said it, nothing changes for me still.
You employed the rookie, so you better suck it up and give him the chance to learn and fail at the job. If you were never gonna accept a possible failure from him then you should’ve gone for experienced managers.
Now he’s done that. He’s failed from it. The question is will he learn from it? Next season I’ll stop seeing him as a rookie and I’ll have my expectations. For now, I’m behind him and the team
Well said Eddie. Just my point to MA haters.
I am not a hater, wish him well. I just don’t think that his is good enough for the job and I think that he has ably demonstrated his failings.
If you are calling people who are not happy with the results Arteta haters, should I call you Arsenal hater?
Why are you cheering for the man who is dragging the club down? Don’t be offended by the language used I am just putting it the way you did.
@felix
Naive comment..both of you. I dont hate MA. I just love Arsenal more. And the novice has reduced my love to a joke.
If you low achievers are happy with the status quo the novice has reduced us to, then you dont deserve to support the Arsenal. You happy with a unstable 1st 11? Lack of tactics? Favouritism? then go follow the spuds
Arteta getting the Arsenal job for his first managerial role, is like a university graduate walking into a role as a headmaster of a school. It simply should not happen, until you have cut your teeth. He was a cheap option, because we are still paying the wages of Emery, like Odegaard was a cheap option cos we are still paying the wages of Ozil.
From this summer we will get both off the wage bill and hopefully be able to afford to offload arteta and his backroom too. If we could offload Aubameyang and Willian plus Luiz and kolasinac that is another £800k a week, plus hopefully £40m in fees.
And what about if we end up in the “Conferen e League” What then?
It’s not about being a MA hater ,no such thing ,it’s about wanting what’s best for the team you fell in love with and not wanting 2nd best .
Everyone’s is entitled to back the manager as much as they want but don’t say you wasn’t warned come 10 matches into the new season if he starts it in charge ,Arsenal fans have been patient for far to long it’s about time this club started repaying abit back because if fans are allowed in crowds next season ,the atmosphere will be as toxic as ever if we start the season how this one as gone and the club will only have themselves to blame .
Admin Pat, heaven knows I don’t want that shít of a league also.
I’d rather see us 10th than see us go play that league that’ll bring more mockery.
Eddie, when you analyse the performance of Arteta, compared to his predecessor Emery, how can you in all honesty and fairness call for Arteta to be retained until the end of season 2021/22?
Emery lost 3 from 8 games and had Arsenal 8th in his second season, after finishing 5th and losing the Europa League final in his first season, yet was sacked. The first Emery season was an improvement on Wenger’s last season.
After winning the FA Cup at the end of that season and not improving on 8th place, Arteta in his second season has had Arsenal lose 13 games, be in 9th position and beaten by an ordinary Villarreal managed by his predecessor Emery in the Europa League semi final. Terry Neil lost 11 games in a full season and was sacked.
Eddie, what makes Arteta so special, other than he was an Arsenal player to accord him less scrutiny and hold him to a different standard than Wenger, Emery and Neil?
Ozziegunner the answer to your question vis simple as ABC.. why wait for next season to sack Arteta? Why’s he standard different?
Simply because best a novice. Come on you’re not gonna imply that he should deliver the same thing managers with years of experience were doing are you?
Unlike Emery and Co, he didn’t take the job with years of experience behind him, so to simply expect him to go there and do what Emery couldn’t in his first season is basically setting him up to fail.
Has he failed? Of cus he has failed badly, it’s his first attempt and he’s failed. Will you then throw him out for failing in his first attempt? Why didn’t you go for an experienced manager if weren’t gon give him the first chance to fail and learn?
Wow so in your head Eddie the club is made for managers sdo they can fail then try again then fail then try again so they can learn if this is the right line if profession for them? Clubs hire managers to make a progress and to win things it’s no the other way around where clubs are Mande for managers.
Nothing else expected from Eddie, him and there are few like him who just do not want to open their eyes to acknowledge they made a mistake in supporting Arteta instead they will call others negative or haters blah blah. Fans like you are the real issue who like our owner are too stubborn to acknowledge an issue or mistake so if you can’t see your mistakes you can’t fix it.
Dude you’re basically dumb and stupid.. I haven’t called anyone Mikel’s hater before. The fact that I’m supporting him doesn’t mean others who don’t do same are haters.
Bring out a comment of me calling people Arteta’s haters. If you can’t the STFU and stop commenting like a kid.
I still insist, I’ll start having my expectations next season, I haven’t asked any of you to join me
A person who has no brain and has brain farts like the dude he supports is calling others stupid, how funny is that?. All your comments are pathetic and idiotic. You are the same idiot who called other naive and having no knowledge big football when they objected to Willian signing sighting him as a spent force. You are the same idiot who thought Arteta will achieve great things this season. So have zero football knowledge and have been proven wrong again and again but because ur head is so far up ur ass you just can not acknowledge your mistakes instead keep spilling bullshxt here.
Again with the lies and crap.. you simply have no shame. Dig out every of my comments about Willian, and they’re all about how I insisted he’s not being brought in to play the attacking midfielder role like everyone thought.
Nearly Everyone kept going on about how Willian was signing to replace Ozil and from day one I always insisted he was only brought in as competition for our wingers.
Foolish fans like you actually do what you complain of.
I’ve always supported Arteta, but once again bring out a comment of mine saying he’ll do great things this season. Unlike you fool, I wasn’t expecting Arteta to blow my mind in his first season. Now run along you demented dingbat
Eddie ,your final paragraph sums up my own feelings exactly.
Same here but it’s also sums up my doubts. I don’t see a lot of learning going on. Case in point – maybe his comment yesterday that he sticks by his decision to play Xhaka at LB – despite Saka having one of the most dominant performances at LB that I can remember – was more about saving face but I’d rather see a little humility and admit that he got it wrong.
On topic, I expect Willock and Saliba to be loanees back in the fold next season. Think Guendouzi, Torreira, Mavraponas and AMN will be sold.
A little humility on the part of fans would also not go amiss. Playing Villareal in a semi-final is not the same as playing a relegation bound team.
Although not ideal Xhaka has played at LB before and done a reasonable job so it was not unreasonable for him to be played there. Also, Saka has been one of Arsenal best attacking players this season. It was perfectly sensible for him to be played in the same role he has played so well.
I’ll have to respectfully disagree with you DB. Saka has proven he is a more than a capable like for like replacement for Tierney against much better teams than WBA. Yes Saka has been our best attacker but we have more than enough cover at RW. We have no cover at LB,apart from Saka, who can play the way Arteta seems to ultimately want Arsenal to play. Needs, must.
I will admit though that I’ve been a bit of a broken record on this one so well let it rest…
So what about playing with smith Rowe as 9,5 ? Had he done a reasonable job there before ? I 100% back this lack of humility of arteta. Very annoying.
Grandad that’s just it for me… I was never expecting the rookie in his first year to deliver.
Give him another season and see how he does, and if he learns from his failure.
I don’t know why folks expected him to instantly deliver when he had zero experience
Then why hire him if he has zero experience. Are you supporting club or Arteta? From your comment Arteta’s success is more important then the club so the club needs to keep on giving him time and money so one day he will learn the trade. This ain’t a school, in real world no profession allows you to fail in your job completely for an year then say let’s keep the dude to gain experience so one day he can deliver. They pay you for your skill set and if you can not do the job or complete the tasks as put down in contract you are out.
👍 This is the point, Logic and once you do and it becomes obvious it is not working you take steps to rectify the situation, surely?
I wonder how you know what is in his contract and how much time he was given to accomplish those tasks?
This is such a good point Logic I will be borrowing it from time to time to remind some people when they get aggressive in their defense of Arteta.
Is there any evidence to suggest that Arteta will make the right decisions regarding loaness? Absolutely none. In this period of crisis, we need to be extremely careful and cautious. Going forward, I would strip Arteta of all player-related decisions and transfer this function to our new head of football operations.
Personally i hope he has nothing to do with the team by next season. I dont see how he helped Gouendouzi, Willock and Saliba, in fact, the opposite. I am praying every minute of the day, crossing my fingers and my toes that Arteta is relieved of his duty come the end of the season. This season has been cock up after cock up and we can do without another week of Arteta. The team would benefit massively from good guidance from the manager. Heres hoping! Come on RAFA.
Never understood how we took Ceballos and loaned out Guendouzi, who is miles better than Ceballos. Seems to me some players have been treated badly over the last couple of years. I must say I preferred Wenger’s fatherly style towards players than Arteta’s grudgeful style, even though I became a ‘Wenger out’ over the last couple of years of his reign, and as obstinate as he was, Wenger did have the milk of human kindness…..a good man. How I would love Arsenal to somehow get Brendan Rogers here….he would get us back into Europe.
Matteo is not better than Ceballos, they are comparably not good enough.
Only Matteo has an attitude issue!
If you call standing up for your team mates an attitude issue. I wouldnt want you beside me in ANY situation.
His supposed bad bahaviour craps on the loser xhaka’s yet which loser still gets an auto start?
I think you should read up on what really transpired with Guendouzi before mking outrageous assumptions. It wasnt one incident and he was not standing up for any team mate.. As for Xhaka you could have rephrased that to “I dont like Xhaka”
He has showed nothing to instill confidence that he is going to be a good coach, at least not at the club of Arsenal status. He should be learning his trade at lower divisions.
He is giving all he has at the moment (which is 10th and out of all competitions) which shows he is just not good enough. That is a fact that can not be refuted.
The fact that Arsenal is giving a person the chance to learn his trade with devastating results and neither signs nor guarantee that he is going to be a good coach is very sad, very sad indeed!
The fact that all players are digressing under him for example Aubameyang and Partey make me afraid all the money promised for the summer window is going to be a waste and the next proper manager is going to have a very big mess to sort out.
With Arteta as a manager next season is already over for us before it even begins. If he is going to be replaced next season (which is more likely based on what we have seen and not wishful thinking and false hopes some of us are having) why not replace him at the end of the season?
When you fall down in the EPL nowadays it is very difficult to get up again because the rest of the teams won’t give us a chance to.
yeah i’m sure the next manager will be really disappointed to have crap arteta signings like gabriel or partey. Arteta recruitment was good he just failed at everything else…
Well he has turned good players crap so it is my fear any new signing will be pointless under him because he is the one not capable.
The new manager at the end of the season will at least sign the players he want not work with Arteta signings when he take over.
We may get another Partey or we may get another Willian.
Guendouzi, no I don’t think so. Move on and take 60% of that panel with you.
Guendouzi had some plaudits during the early stages of his time at Hertha, but he’s had plenty of bad reviews since then too – both on and off the field. They don’t even want to keep him next season. They are currently 14th in a league deemed by most to be weaker than the EPL.
So not good enough for the German Crystal Palace, but good enough for The Arsenal? I think not.
Reports suggest Saliba is to be fully integrated into the Arsenal first team squad next season, so no surprise there.
Think bigger decisions to be made will be over Willock, AMN and Nelson. I expect two to go. Hopefully not all three though.
Keep Willock. I’d love to keep AMN as our lb/rb reserve though I believe they will cash in on him this summer. Nelson needs a solid loan to increase his value, though if we can get 10mil it seems likely he will be sold. However with all the expected turnover(starting in Jan.) I feel we will be forced to keep two of the three so we can focus our funds on a few key 1st team starters similar to what we did this past summer.
For his gross indiscipline record at Arsenal that necessitated loaning him out last summer window. I can’t see the chance for Mateo Guendouzi being reabsolved into the team by Mikel Arteta next summer but sold or be loaned out again.
But as for Williams Saliba, Arsenal might keep him after his loan deal at Lille has expired next summer window. More so, if he has improved on his football considerably that convinced Arsenal he’s ready for Premier League football playing next season at the top level of the game in it. But even then, there has to be a vacant position at the Arsenal centreback positions before he can be stationed in the team to see how he’s performing there up to December to know if he has cut it. Meaning David Luiz will not be resigned? Maybe yes.
But by and large, let us calm down in our next summer window agitation for Arsenal. And be patient till this season has come to an end. For, I believe Arsenal are yet to switch ON to next summer transfer window MODE. But they will switch ON to it as soon as this season’s campaign in the Premier League in their own case has come to an end. By that time they will know their fate if they are going to play European football next season or not.
Main While, I strongly advice us to focus on our next PL match at away to Chelsea on Wednesday night. And think and offer our advise to M Arteta and the Gunners on what they should do in the game at the Bridge to beat Chelsea at their backyard. This is important!
If there’s any truth to the proposed MG swap deal
with Marseille for B Kamara, Edu and MA should
be immediately canned if they don’t expedite that
deal. Kamara is an incredible talent @ CB that
would partner Gabriel or Saliba for the next decade
@ the Emirates. Dude is an absolute stud.
Adding Kamara would also allow Mavro to spend
another year developing @ Stuttgart. If the Greek
continues to prove himself as one of the BL best
young defenders, AFC would be in the enviable
position of having a proven young international
to integrate back into the 1st team in 2022 or sell
if potential suitors are willing to pony up the cash.
Torreria shouldn’t be sold for anything less than
£20M. I honestly don’t care how badly his form has
dipped, how MT doesn’t fancy him, or how
desperate he is to return to South America for
family reasons and play for his dream club Bocas.
IMHO the Urugyuan is still a quality player and
shouldn’t be senselessly binned away because it
hasn’t worked out in NL thus far.
£30M for Willock, £20M for AMN. If no suitors are
willing to stump up the cash then both should
be loaned back out next season. Willock might get
a second look if MA is giving his walking papers
Saliba should be one of the top four CB’s going into
next season and IMHO should partner either Gabriel
or Kamara( if that swap for MG happens) to start
next season. MA and EDU have to play him or sell
him, the young Frenchmen is to good to have his
career compromised.
If we finish 7th we probably end up in the Europa Conference League which means we have to play qualifying matches in July and could be drawn against Klaksvikar Itrottarfelag or Havnar Boltfelag from the Faroe Islands. There are over 150 teams involved which will finally be reduced to 8 groups of 4. Personally I would rather stay where we are and spend the Euro free year to sort the team out and have a proper pre-season and prepare for the next.
I want Willock as no. 8 and 10 positions.
CB is covered, Dino or Saliba or Mcguiness or Ballard.
AMN in midfield may be a good destroyer and ball carrier, if contract os to be extended.
It was a stupid call not to loan Nelson or play him.
No place yet for T.jules. He got injured which held him back, not yet ready for Arsenal.
If T. Bola (captain of U23) (or Lopez)is not ready to play back up role, then we should get a left back. The current situation of playing Saka or Xhaka is a mess, unless Saka would be tried more often and someone else plays on wing and show promise.
A lot of contract situations will decide our squad.
The arguments in defence of arteta are entering trump territory .. we never expected him to turn things around after 18 months … not the point of course … no one and I mean NO ONE expected him to make the team worse and take it back 30 years … but he is still learning his trade and needs time to develop his philosophy … but he has a philosophy it’s already on display … build out slowly from the back keep as many people behind the ball as possible rely on experience to keep shape dont press too hard … it’s just a s@@@ one like David moyes his mentor … he needs another window .. but he’s brought in 9 or 10 players already … most of whom are average players at best attuned to his backward looking philosophy … so … he’s failed but that’s ok we expected that he’s a novice with no philosophy and he inherited a bad squad that needs time to improve and I should know I’ve been been supporting this club since the battle of Waterloo and I value patience!!!!
No his ego is bigger than his brain