Have Arsenal now hit rock bottom? by ThirdManJW
The unraveling of our squad we saw under Emery, we’re now seeing the same, if not more so under Arteta. Mostly inherited problems I should add. The result and performance was expected against City, but it’s the problems surrounding the squad that seemed to have deepened.
We have one the best strikers in Europe, that cannot even get a game upfront in a rubbish team, and who’s future is up in the air. One of highest paid players in all of Europe doesn’t even make it onto a 9-man bench. Tactical reasons again, apparently. Laca, yet another expensive flop, is also coming to the end of his contract, and now seemingly just a bench player these days. Luiz might walk out of the door before the season even ends (although that is great news), and is now saying he wish he did things differently in recent months. What does that mean?
Pepe, our most expensive signing in our history, is yet again on the bench, and yet again not even used! Martinelli was in fantastic form, and suddenly is taken out of the team by Arteta? And so on, and so on… It seems to be pure chaos at Arsenal these days!
Maybe the older fans have seen worse, but in my years of following Arsenal, I have never known such turmoil within the squad. Given that there seems to be problems with all of our big names, I wonder if we’ve seen this much trouble at any big club before?
Even more worrying is that we cannot even perform a complete reboot of the squad. The majority of our deadwood are likely to be here next season, because of their extravagant wages. No European football next season (which is likely), will make it even tougher to get in quality replacements.
I am still fairly optimistic about Arteta becoming a top manager, but I wonder if this is too much right now for someone as inexperienced as he is? It’s scary to think that our squad could look even worse next season, and led by a manager that could be out of his depth.
Darker days ahead?
ThirdManJW