Freddie Ljungberg urges senior Arsenal players to take more responsibilities.
Arsenal interim boss, Freddie Ljungberg is banking on his senior players to take greater responsibility and help the Gunners turn their season around.
The Swede has failed to win his opening two games. The more the Gunners drop points the further away from the rest of the teams they will get and the 42-year-old knows that won’t be good enough to keep him at the job for long.
Arsenal is currently 10 points off the top four, but if they are beaten at West Ham on Monday again, they might have to face the prospect of a relegation battle this season.
Speaking ahead of their match against the Hammers, Ljungberg explained that he has prioritized fielding the senior players because he trusts them to get the club firing again.
“I haven’t said I’m going to build the team against specific players but I felt I want to play the experienced players when it’s such a difficult situation like it is at the moment,” Ljungberg said per The Independent.
“[I decided not to] pick all the young players that are going to change the future of this club. I made a conscious choice to put down the older players to take the responsibility and change the games.”
Asked if he needs his big players to step up against West Ham, Ljungberg added: “We do. We need to change this downward spiral. It is going to be a great occasion but maybe that is good for our players.
“They can relax a little bit and concentrate on the game and hopefully do what they did when we came out for the second half [against Brighton].”
Ljungberg also insists that the team is still with a chance of qualifying for the Champions League at the end of this season.
“No, I don’t think we should stop talking about the top four,” he added. “But for us it’s about concentrating on what we’re doing here now and not look up, down, sideways. We just need to work on our own game and our own confidence.”
Thing is this, it is not working with the senior players, they are the ones that have let the club down time and time again.
Top four…..lol
Ljungberg is starting to sound as delusional as our previous two managers!
Cojones please!
Step up their not good enough to step up.
All we have ever got from the kronkes is hollow words or in stan’s case no words and they call the shots.
Man city,chelsea liverpool etc are progressive clubs because they have owners who support thier club.
What more is there to say !!!
So with that comment I guess we can expect this line up tonight
Leno
Bellerin Mustafa Sokratis Kola
Xhaka Luiz
Pepe ozil aubameyang
Lacazette
@Atid.. Exactly the same line-up I had in mind as soon as I read “Senior and Experience”.
Ljungberg is now looking Paranoid.’ no doubt.
I would never be a ‘Kolasinac’ fan; I’m sorry for those who is. When you guys talk about Mediocrity, his the only Mediocre I can humbly always pin-point.
“Tierney must be starting every match! Why is it so hard!! Huh.
@Atid
Okay but you have to give credit where due. Kolasinac has been okay past few games. Tierney was traumatized ever since he faced Adama Traore.. he has never made a foward run ever since. It’s a shame really, the lad was whipping in crosses when he joined.
Traumatized 😂👍
See how Leicester, Spurs, and MU have good progress now.. look how spirit and good strategy they have now..
We need to change quite radically. How good the strategy but with players like David Luiz and Sokratis, it will be waste of time..
We need to have a new coach before January to modify the squad in the transfer window.For me the only one available with experience in the Premier is Pochetino.I do not think we have a Duncan Ferguson in Freddie Ljungber.
Please put a proper first XI and a set formation to start with. Don’t tinker like Emery did as that has made you pose a lot of goodwill in just two games. Your under-23 boys ain’t gonna do it for us.
What senior players and what responsibility? They have let us down time and again. The owners are not interested and passionate about the Club we love so much. Get a top class Manager, leave out lazy and disinterested players, get fresh players or players from the Academy who are more hungrier and passionate and love to wear the shirt with pride and dignity. Get us back our Arsenal.
Heung min Son is the player we think Ozil is.
Sorry Freddie it isn’t going to work. We are in the same situation Leeds United were the season they dropped out of the premier league. Paying way too much money to very average or in Xhaka’s less than average players. To put it into perspective for you. The captain of the team, our best player, can’t get out fast enough. The captain cannot wait to get off the ship because the ship is sinking and there is no chance of saving it with this present crew. Lance the boil Freddie
Get rid of Xhaka, Ozil, Sokratis, Luiz, Torreria, Kolasinac and Mustafi. Bring in fresh legs, hungry players who can run from the academy like Burton, Smith Rowe, John Jules, Medely now plus a couple of experienced central defenders in January and we can start to save the club from relegation. If you insist on carrying on along the same path with the same midfield and defence personell who cannot compete with the teams in the relegation zone, there’s only one way this is going to end.
Spot on Akan.We need a quality CB and DM in the January window.I ‘m not concerned with the top four,it’s the bottom three that worries me.Having watched Leicester take the Villa apart yesterday,I realize how far behind them we are and to think their excellent centre backs could be wearing our Red shirts if our incompetent recruitment people had done their job.Evans was available for 3m and we watched Soyunco for months.But no matter we have Sokratis , Mustafi and Luis, three senior players who are unfortunately useless.
Grandad, scouting and recruitment has been poor for years, particularly in addressing the replacement of Gilberto Silva as DM and finding CB’s.
Forcing Sven Mislantat and Steve Morrow out hasn’t helped matters.
Freddie is obviously blind or delusional, we are in this place because of our senior players. The sooner we get someone in who can see and sort that the better. Im not confident about tonight at all, i dont like what is being said. There is no change in the managers thoughts from Emery and the results wont change either. The last peo6i would want to dig us out of this is our senior players i don’t trust them.
Sorry “people” in post above.
Ljundberg, like Emery before him, is finding shuffling the deck to come up with a winning combination from this squad is difficult.
It’s about time the players stood up, but they seem to just want to take the money, with no mentality for the fight.
If we as supporters/fans feel frustrated just imagine how the players feel. Remember the players go out on the field to execute a plan as instructed by the manager/coach so naturally if they don’t believe in the game plan its gonna show on the pitch a perfect example is Everton this weekend. It’s clear that the players either didn’t understand Silva or didn’t buy into his vision or game plan. I suspect we sitting with the same problem