From every disappointment, lessons can be learned and yesterday was, without doubt, a massive disappointment.
If we do not take a serious hard look at ourselves things will not get better and there was enough from the Brighton game alone to tell us what we need to know going forward.
Here are five things I have highlighted that we can hopefully take on board.
We are now bottle jobs
There is no hiding from that fact anymore and if we ignore it we are just deluding ourselves. We have had multiple opportunities to have finished top-four and literally on every occasion we have come up short. There are just two words for that, bottle jobs.
No such thing as nothing to play for
The idea that teams just turned up once their season was over with and they have nothing to play for is a myth, it may apply to the best teams, they may not be bothered but the teams that are playing the top teams do not think that at all. A scalp of an elite side is something to play for, Huddersfield, Bournemouth and Brighton all proved that beyond any doubt this weekend.
The midfield is not top-four quality
Not one of our midfielders are top-four quality and the only way to verify that is to ask yourself a simple question, would any of them get into our top-four opponent’s sides and the brutal truth is no, in fact, the midfield of the likes of Leicester City is better. An uncomfortable truth but the truth nonetheless.
Unai Emery still on a learning curve
This is his first season and he has made a load of mistakes there is no denying that and we have to hope that he has learned from his debut season in the Premier League. There was a serious lack of urgency yesterday, the tactics were wrong and he just never seemed to grasp the seriousness of the situation. One season of domestic disappointment is sustainable but not two.
Serious money must be spent
This one is a no brainer. The squad needs an overhaul and not a small one but a major one, especially the defence and midfield. If there is no serious injection of funds and no top class additions to the squad then to expect a different result next year is naivety at it’s very worse.
The mass exodus is not too far away…..
to compete with the elite of europe you must have elite players of whom none of our team possess. – gooner = for ever
Spot on article! The midfield which was once our stronghold, is now a weakpoint even rivaling the hopless defence. Xhaka, makes countless incomplete passes, gave away a silly penalty away at Crystal Palace and now has repeated his stupidity versus Brighton. Torreira, am sorry to say this but he simply has physical limitations that do not allow him to be the dominant DM that can impose his will on the opposition. Guendouzi? Haha ..boy was I glad when he was yellow carded for diving and arrogantly grabbing the ball as if he is player-cum-referee. He should be sent back where he came from. Is not good going foward neither is he defensively. Absolute waste of £7M just like El Neny that joke of a footballer.
Our deep-lying playmaker has degraded from Fabregas/ Cazorla to Xhaka. He has the highest forward pass statistic at Arsenal, but he cannot create good through balls and movements quickly
Arsenal can replace Vieira with a DLP playmaker, but they must find the one with fast speed of thoughts. Otherwise might as well find another powerful box-to-box CM like Vieira and forget about the whole tiki-taka idea
Guendouzi is still young and might be able to improve, but his seniors definitely showed us their maximum abilities and willpower. If the old players cannot contribute more, they should leave, rather than bleeding the club dry
Get rid of trash players. Get players who love the batch not the just the money. Players who can press the opposition when they are not in possesion . Hardworking players. Arsenal has so many weak players now a days. Maybe some fans having observed that. Lechester city won the premier league not because of their skill, but because of their hard work. If players had put in hard work we would have at won 1 game and drew 1 in the last 3 games. They are weak both mentally and physically. huh!
Trouble is, we won’t learn from anything. We learnt long ago that Xhaka is basically useless and gave away the penalty yesterday but will still be here next season playing in our midfield. We learnt long ago that Sokratis is just a wrestler disguised as a footballer but he’ll be here too. We have also learnt that Emery is not good enough for the this club and if we do not learn from that and big changes aren’t made soon we will be mid table next season, or worse. People saying we will lose to Chelsea in the Euro League final are somewhat premature as I can’t see us getting that far as Valencia will likely trounce us. Do I sound pissed off? You bet I am!
How can you blame t he manager when it,s not his team,explain it to me please!
Sorry for the late reply but I’ve got a life away from Just Arsenal, so I’ll now explain: Of course it’s his team, four players were recruited in his tenure, Sokratis, Lichtsteiner, Torriera and Leno. Two players have spent more time with him than under Wenger, Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan. He has coached the team all season. We are playing terrible football and are boring to watch. So, now now you tell me why it’s not his team and why he’s not to blame?
The manager needs funds to revamp D team. I see no seriousness in the players during the game. If nt for Leno, we would have lost. What happened to the tactics of keeping possession wen winning. Emery has tried, but we need serious and hard working players. Premier league is no longer for soft silky players
Seriously there was nothing to take from that game because we all know the absolute truth.
I won’t call for Emery’s head, like I’ve normally said but I don’t believe he’s the man for us.
I figured that out Halfway through the season.
Yes the players are also poor, weed out a few from them and replace then watch the rest get elevated.
I try to be honest and straightforward with my opinions most of the time, that being said, getting rid of some of these players would be s tough job, but then again, when you claim you have all the statistics and knowledge behind our players (Something which is the main reason you got this job, claiming inside knowledge of every player) but then you’re mostly clueless and select players based on favouritism, it raises questions. Did he truly knew shít about our players? or was it just a load of crap!
Knowing the players Also means knowing their flaws, some cannot even be debated, then you have a bunch of talent burning through your academy waiting to flare up in games, but you choose to stick with your average and mediocre players, do you have anyone else to blame??
I have noticed something about Torreira, he seems to be the supporting midfielder from deep and i think it’s because of xhaka immobility and it has clearly affected his form. Same happened to Coquelin when xhaka was integrated into the team. Torreira excelled at the beginning of the season as the defensive midfielder but that has changed. Wenger made this same mistake by playing Coquelin further forward to accommodate the slow Xhaka as the holding midfielder and it clearly isn’t working because Torreira should be the deeper player covering with interceptions and tackling since that’s his strength.
Xhaka is so poor. How we miss Santi. He’s so much better than Xhaka, even at 34.
Sport on! Torriera was actually awesome when played as a DM. Now you see him outside the opposition penalty area pressning. Bring him back as a DM I say.
Rumours that Barca want Lacca and will pay up to 70m
Would you stay at Arsenal ? And do you think kronkie will turn down 70m
I havnt paid into the club for three years now and I won’t until their ambitions match my own
I bet they ‘re missing your money!!
No but it’s nice to be able to decide for myself where sep d me hard earned money. I know it’s tough being allowed an opinion, don’t worry you will get one
I would have kept welbeck and got shot of iwobi instead!!
Yeah but Danny has only got one leg-Hold on !!!!
Your right!!!!
Still better than Iwobi
??
It is better to have an average strikeforce/defence than to have an average midfield.
reason being? any team can outplay you.and if any team can outplay you they have a higher chance if winning than you.
an average midfield makes you an underdog going into any match.
I believe we have one of the slowest midfield in the entire premier league,the most static and the least creative among the top 6.
bottlejobs?
aha if you watched all the games since day 1 you would realise that 70% of the premier league teams outplayed us. the wins were just lucky.
From Crystal palace to wolves to Leicester you cannot say for certain that arsenal have a better team.
and sorry to say this but other than the strike force the rest are not better than Brighton players either
4 SIGNINGS,- Mandatory for us to do something worth speaking of next season.
Attack- Wilfried Zaha
Midfield- Adrien Rabiot
Defense- David Alaba, Samuel Umtiti
Booted out- Mustafi, Monreal, Xhaka, Mkhitaryan, Elneny.
Trouble is we can’t just get rid of the players in the team as we will not have the money to replace six or seven players, how long would it take to for the team to gel again, it has to be done slowly. Mustafi has to be replaced along with Xhaka and Mika. We can bring some of the youth players through. The defence has to be sorted along with the midfield, our attack is still strong enough for a few more seasons, but Nketiah and Nelson along with Smith-Rowe and bring them through.It’s the mentality that needs to change, we need a back-bone and a leader, but I hope Emery has to improve because some of his formation, and selection has backfired in a lot of games, so let’s see what the Summer brings, but we need the transfers to happen quickly so they can adjust for the new season
Watching some of our players yesterday made it clear that we may finish 5th or so, but we are do not have any ways to ‘dominate’ matches. My memories of the George Graham sides and the ‘Invincibles’, even some of the Wenger sides with Cesc, is that we could truly ‘DOMINATE’. Watching players like Xhaka, Iwobi, Mkhitarian and others is a struggle. Because of the lack of creative investment and because there has been more concentration on filling Arsenal backroom positions rather than recruitment of players, it’s clear technical directors do not win matches…….PLAYERS do. Being owned as a ‘Portfolio club’, and having an ignorant owner compound the problem. Kroenke’s life should be made a misery of protests because ‘if things don’t change they stay as they are’. Do you want years of this? Don’t accept it.
Only Torreira, Auba, Laca, Leno, Holding, and Bellerin are worth keeping. There will also be question marks over Holding, and Bellerin, regarding how well or even if they fully recover from their long-term injuries. Bellerin has missed half the season, and Holding has missed almost 2/3 of the season, Torreira missed a bit as well, and this is the only quality Emery has had to work with! Pep, Klopp, Poch, etc, wouldn’t do any better!
What I don’t understand is the consistently changing perspectives from some fans from game to game.
Someone mentioned it in a comment. Most fans seem not to have any confidence in this team as we all should be.
People go into most games posting comments like “The best I expect from this game is a draw if we are lucky. Or We are going to be humiliated in this and that game. I expect a loss in this game blah blah”.
But the moment moment their predictions about each game come true they then start complaning about Emery, This player and that player”.
Most of us have the same dire expectations from this current squad from game to game, but when predicted rubbish results come true the same then people change their tune start talking like they were expecting positive results.
I keep saying. This team is a team of imbalanced flawed frauds. Only good players by NAME or on paper, but apart from that they have the same output as Elneny, Iwobi, Mustafi etc… The quicker people realise this the better.
Emery should not be exempt from criticism but this team has been a joke for 2 or more season before him. Wenger built it, he could not get anything out of them, how do we expect a new manager to turn them into serious players when they have not shown anything in 3 seasons?
My real criticism of Emery start next season and it will be quite hard if he does not show any improvement.
Was reading Jamie Redknapp views in paper and he mentioned Lewis dunk should be someone Arsenal should look to sign a out and out defender yes not a house hold name but does what he’s there for and defends for his life we need more players like that we have enough quality in the final third it’s just the defence that badly needs sorting out!!
And it seems like the cringeworthy acceptance of Xhaka as some kind of very important part of our midfield has worn off.
People were romanticising about how he and Torreira had become a very fluid and stable partnership throughout this season.
What I have realised is that my fellow Arsenal fans have become very easily pleased by inconsistent / average players. A player only has to have about 3 good games and then the typical “He is very crucial to our team” comments will start appearing. “So and so has conjured up a very imortant / crucial partnership with so and so. They are very crucial to the team” blah blah.
People keep on blaming our players wit out known UE don’t kno what he is doing since he came we lost our style of football.. This is exactly what he did in roben kazan in Russia and PSG,could u believe UE couldn’t win a single away match at sellvilla in his last season b4 moving to PSG to create havocs wit players b4 coming here to start with Ozil.
Give Emery a chance he got to get rid of these players But who is going to buy them and give him a chance to get his own team in then judge him next season but for Gods sake give him a chance before you crucify him
We at least have to spend 125 to 150 Millions in the summer in order to become more competitive…
One strong CB is required… Manolas would be good option who has only 32 Millions as release clause… Need one RB, Aaron Wan-Bissaka or Yan Valery from Southampton…
We need may be 2 wingers…. Zaha may be the one option….
We require one Number 10 and Maddison would be perfect and one Striker which could be back up for Lacazzet and Aubameyang… Timo Werner is one of good prospect…
Do you have trouble telling your right from your left? Bellerin backed up by AMN. Kolasinac backed up by Monreal. I’d prioritise left back.
Sell everyone bar Torreira, Auba, Laca, Leno, Holding, and Bellerin for
David Neres – Miki
Hakim Ziyech – Ozil
Donny Van Beek – Ramsay
Nicholas Tagliafico – Monreal
Leno
Bellerin Holding Sokratis Tagliafico
Torreira VanBeek
Neres Ziyech Auba
Laca
It is better for Niles to play in the midfield than have Xhaka in there
With a limited Budget it becomes a question of priorities and in my opinion we first of all need massive upgrades at CB,LB and a natural left footed left winger.The problem for us will be unloading the likes of Mik,Mustafi, Socratis and Xhaka who are on lucrative, unjustifiable contracts.Who in their right mind would buy them?
We have great young players, I say give them their chance against Burnley, obviously we cannot recall nelson and ESR who would start if I had my way.
For now I would go with this very young 442 line up at Burnley
GK: Leno
Back 4: Osei-tutu mavropanos Pleguzuelo Thompson
Midfield: AMN torreira(c) willock saka
Front 2: nketiah john-jules
Bench: okonkwo medley ballard sheaf Guendozi ameachi balogun
Torreira who speaks next to no English as captain, yeah right, we’ll get a hiding.
But at least academy players will have “tried” regardless of result
He has signed Leno,Socrates,Leichnestainer,Ghendouzi,Torreira and Dennis Suarez on loan
All average and none of them would play for any team in top 6
Just thought I d ask the obvious question as it seems never to have occurred to you; name ONE widely regarded world class player in the Prem bought by an incoming manager for relative peanuts. VVD cost 75 mill. Wenger and Gazidis spent 70 mill on Mustafi and Xhaka. Which of these two differently ambitious clubs buys has had the most usefulness would you say! Emerys ONLY buying proven failure is Licht and only then because he is old. The Scrooge of an owner is where the actual problem lies. Shame YOU either cannot or else refuse to see that fact.