Three league games into this season and it looked very much like Arsenal would fire Mikel Arteta before the new year.
Who wouldn’t feel that way after spending almost 200m euros in the transfer market?
The Spaniard saw his team return to form just in time to save his job and Arsenal has become one of the most in-form teams in the Premier League recently.
After the win against Aston Villa yesterday, we cannot help but notice the many positives around our beloved club.
There are so many of them, but the points below show some sign of good progress being made.
Midfielders are scoring
Arsenal overly relied on attackers to score goals not so long ago and the lack of goals from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang last season affected our form.
Today we can get goals from Thomas Partey and almost certainly Emile Smith Rowe, which makes us unpredictable and improves our chances of winning matches.
Aubameyang is back to his pressing and scoring best
Aubameyang’s body language for much of last season and at the start of this campaign wasn’t so good, but that has changed.
The club captain now looks hungrier than ever and now leads from the front by example with good pressing. Let’s not forget the inevitable goals.
Our defence looks very coordinated and settled
Ben White and Gabriel Magalhaes look like a match made in heaven and it is a credit to Mikel Arteta’s judgement in the transfer window.
Both players are the real deal and could lead us back to the top four if niether gets a long-term injury.
Even the backup players are showing good hunger
Nuno Tavares was in solid form last night and Gabriel Martinelli was eager to impress when he came into the match late.
These fringe players look ready and will be valuable to the team down the line.
With these little developments, I am confident that we are ready to make a great leap up the league table this season.
You dont get it right in one game, lets see after the next few to see if he is getting it right or a false dawn. We now no what to expect.
Absolutely. Emery propelled us to 4th for some games in his first season and to very convincing wins like against spurs 4-2 or in UEL, displaying nice attacking football. Then few months later he was dunbed not good enough for us. Right now, we are still 9th, probably 10th tomorrow. So absolutely not there yet. Lets see in a month first after 4,5 games
We’ve been truly blessed with one hell of a favourable run of fixtures which was great to get a run of form. I’m taking nothing away from our recent EPL record but we’ve only really looked good in 1.5 games out of the last 6.
After our next 6 games we’ll truly know if we are making genuine progress, looking forward to it.
Leicester
Watford(smashing Everton now)
Liverpool
Newcastle(New manager soon)
Man U
Everton
Agree, lets get some perspective into reality, we are on -3 goals, hovering around 10th and have just come of the back of 2 very poor draws. Last night was against the grain as far as performance was concerned, its got to be the norm not the unusual. The next 6 games will tell us everything about wether Arteta has got it right.
Favourable run???????????? The best 6 we’ve played (out of 9) were 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 9th and 13th (positions prior to this weekend.) The other 3 games were 14th, 18th and 20th
Those teams you mention started the weekend 12th, 17th, 2nd, 19th, 6th and 8th. Hardly a harder run is it.
As to this weekend 2nd is playing 6th, 8th just lost to 17th, 12th has to play 9th and like us 19th just drew to 14th. So it’s going to look even less difficult when it’s all said and done this weekend.
Of course I said from the start of the season lets wait until after the United game before we judge Arteta but whatever.
United play Liverpool, Spurs, City, Watford (a), Chelsea before they take on us btw for context of runs. That is 2nd, 5th, 3rd, 17th and 1st. We have played 3 of them already.
Can you read? I said our last 6 games, nothing about the 1st 3 games!
No team is a push over but would I call the below a relatively favourable run in the EPL….hell yes!
Norwich
Burnely
Spurs
Brighton
Crystal Palace
Villa
Time to relax Angus, also try read before responding.
Hahahahahahaha I said to you personally and multiple others wait until after United to judge Arteta. Your telling me now I need to learn to read because you now hold the opinion of waiting until after United you argued with me previously. Seriously?
Did read and responded accurately. We’ve had one of the harder starts the year evidence by Uniteds next 6 compared to ours.
to the year evidenced* Trying to cherry pick around the fact we have already played 1st, 3rd and 9th is highly disingenious.
disingenuous*
You remember what you said to me previously? Talk about living in someone’s head rent free!
Maybe get a hobby mate
Talking about our last 6 fixtures is not cherry picking lol….thanks for the entertainment.
Welcome back Angus
You had gone abit quite after the Brighton and palace games ,it’s good to see you back after a win and telling it like it is ,well done you .
Nice try. You and Reggie above, as well as multiple other repeatedly argued with me over my assertion we should get behind the team and judge Arteta after United. I don’t actually personally recall everything we’ve wrote to each other. I just know you were one of the people that kept arguing with me over something I thought was quite a mild ask. You literally just wrote a paragraph asking people to do what I said at the start of the season. All the facts and figures and quotes I kept bringing in were to convince you to do what your now saying (9 games late.)
PJ, I thought what you wrote was perfectly put, the truth and a fair reflection of whats happened. You didn’t deserves the verbal whipping you got.
Think I commented on the Brighton game Dan and I was here for the Palace game. Didn’t comment because it would of just gone sideways, the lack of VAR intervention had already seen me blow a gasket (I mentioned at 3-0 up vs Spurs that sort of VAR thing will cost us as it did last year.) We had more possession, more shots, same on target, more clear cut chance and a better expect goal yet Palace were the better team apparently. Performance was bad, Arteta actually summed it up best but we were not the 2nd best team at all in the game. Draw was not good enough either and mostly fair (excluding the obvious red card at 1-0)
Coming back to this just to point out had VAR correctly (not up for debate) intervened v Palace we would be 4th right now, we would drop behind either Spurs (who we smashed) Draw/Win or West Ham (who we haven’t played) win tomorrow and maybe United if they win against Liverpool. Most we’d be off 4th would be 2 to Spurs but yeah VAR decision didn’t matter. It was entirely appropriate for our fanbase to not focus on that decision that has cost us and focus on Arteta right? Feels relevant in the context of this discussion.
Lol. I agree with JSA. Are you seriously thinking “hardly a harder run it is” ????!!!!! Of course favourable run. Why do you loose time searching positions ? To make Brighton looks like the 4th best team lol (because they havent played any big team except their leicester win, and Man city were they were trashed 4-1). So yes, over 9 games, we played three bigs and 6 smaller teams (lower budget) including 2 promoted teams. And we also played 5 times at home to four elsewhere. Out of the 3 bigs tottenham played one of the most infamous 1st hqlf ever seen recently (not my assessment but one of serious tv pundits). But anyway, we played 3 bigs and 6 smaller clubs (maybe villa at home the strongest but not even a team competing seriously to get in european places) including two promoted. Another example, our next 9 games include two bigs : liverpool, man U plus leicester away, west ham and everton. And 4 home games to 5 away. So, the next 9 games is probably an harder run !! But wait….! I went to see the next 9 ones ! It includes city, spurs, chelsea and liverpool plus two times watford (10th now). Again a harder run than our first 9 !!! The end of the season seems a bit lighter so yes our first 9 games were not the MOST favourable run but not at all an “hard one”
We’ve had a harder start than most teams, its not up for debate. Had it not been VAR failing we’d be 4th right now. What is your point. We did not remotely have a favourable start compared to the rest of the league and in particular our direct rivals, especially United if we want top 4 at their expense. They are on their much tougher run now playing 3 teams we already have. I didn’t lose time searching either that is part of my support. I look these things up normally not for an argument. My entire judge Arteta after United statement start of the year was based on my analysis of our opening fixtures. That was the time it would be fair. Fact its played out like that is nice (doesn’t always.)
I agree about the fact we can judge arteta later. I think he is not a great coach (not a klopp, sarri, houllier…) But overall (given that he is under contract that he yries to implement new culture etc…) He might get us back on a better track and maybe if things improve a bit, the club will let him runs down his contract and see from there. In the end, i dont mind who is the coach, the only thing i (we) want to see is us being able to compete again for top 4/5 and play some entertaining football with focused players. By the way, you nention had not been VAR we would be 4th. This kind of rewriting the story makes no sense, IMHO. We could (deserved) also to lost against brentford or crystal palace. I dont remember which game but we could have also concede a penalty at one point. we had luck in some games, bad luck in others. We are basically where we deserve to be.
Angus, considering your supposed “judge MA after the United game” proclamation, can you please explain why you continually jump the shark with your wildly inaccurate and largely skewed narratives…it would seem to reason that if you were so certain about your predictive powers you would simply sit back, enjoy the ride then reemerge at the aforementioned time…sounds like someone isn’t quite so convinced about how things might actually pan out…let’s face it, if there was an actual Court of Apologists, you would undoubtedly be the Jester
……says Mr “everyone is an Apologist” if they have hope for the future.
Have you EVER considered that someone else might have a valid opinion????
it appears that once again you’ve put on your always pressed and ready cape just in time to come to the aid of someone who clearly falls into your philosophical camp(lol)…the very fact that you’re willing, in fact, eager to stick your neck out for even this bull in a china shop poster seems a bit of a stretch…I would think that, at least in this case, you would give me a little leeway as it’s hard to dispute the fact that my interactions with Angus have had a positive impact, from a posting perspective if nothing else…don’t you think?
My Cape is always ready when any reader is insulted because they don’t have the same opinion that you want supported. You are quite capable of making your point with logic so why ruin it by insulting another reader.
We are all Arsenal fans and we all have a valid opinion.
You seem to have trouble understanding that…
Interestingly though that when the shoe is on the other foot and someone else aims their proverbial arrows in my direction, you have never interjected yourself into the equation…just saying
Its a league johnze and you are right, the next 9 are probably harder looking than the first 9 but “its a league” and its about picking up points, hard or not, we all play each other home and away. Stupid talking about our so called tough start, we have a tough finish. We should be higher but we aren’t because we weren’t good enough to have done better.
I agree reggie. We have to pick points. And until now, we are not there yet even if it was a “hard run” of 9 first games (kidding). I agree that we should wait to judge anyway. We all want arsenal to be higher than 10th. We also all want arsenal to play like they did against villa or spuds on a moree regular basis.
IMO not playing Odegard changed the dynamics from start, and later we conceded.Are we affected by the MO10 jersey? Is Laca playing for anew bumper contract? Time will answer.
Laca as always been rather efficient IMO. Before arteta at times he was dubbed our best player but many forgot. Under arteta dont forget thay at one point he was barely playing. How can you find rythl with that ? For me Laca is a competent striker. Nor the best one, neither a 182k per week one but he is a good decent one, good enough for PL and worth some more 2 years on 100k per week to help win some games and help younger players grow too. (Vardy is on this 100k/w). Will just be tough to make him accept that while older auba is on 350. But if auba runs down his contract next summer or is sold for a more promising/young optionils be nice to still have one more year of laca.
Your right we should not get carried away with one good performance, but what the win did demonstrate, was, with the exception of Odegaard, all our new signings are very capable players.
Yes. Odegaard is even a bit concerning. Nice to see that he is not favoured over more efficient players. Right now he is not there. And if he does not improve maybe he will just be a good backup to ESR. We’ll need that anyway, some good bench players as there will be cup games soon and maybe europe next year
For me johnze, he has always been back up to ESR but an expensive one.
Yes he never played excellent football with us. I think he is still living (even his price tag) on the hype of being at real at 16, dubbed like the next big thing next big N10… Hopefully he might still developp as that. If not we might one day sell him for 20 or so. So not a bad business either
It’s not getting carried away.
You know someone mentioned he’s actually bee consistent in his tactics yesterday and gave his reasons.
Thinking about it, there’s a lot of truth to it.
When you keep aside the sentiment and dislike for the manager he is, you’d also see that almost all of the games even from last season, he knows what he wants to do and what he wants the team to do.
He has his tactics and approach, and it’s been obvious in how he set up his teams and how they’re always playing good for the first 15 minutes before falling. Ehind ad relaxing.
Maybe these players need to just make sure they stay consistent during gameplay?
Arteta himself also needs to improve his in-game management, but I’d be lying if I said there’s no truth in how his teams always start up great before relaxing.
Now what could be the reason for that?
That’s what we have to find out
Yes mate. You put the whole email address as your username instead of Eddie in the original comment!
Fixed!
Thanks Pat!
Just one win and probably another loss or series of draws, arsenal fans are now on the positive that arteta has something to offer..Have you guys ever observed that if it’s spurs or clubs having our former players,playing against us,you get to see the best of arsenal players then as soon as it’s wolves, westham or c palace you then start to see mediocrity..We should not be quick to count our chicks before it hatches..Let’s see where arsenal will be, come December then you can all roll out the drums for Arteta and his inconsistent tactics and managerial prowells
Eddie- Who should actually do the finding out?
Come on lads… We’re always getting a good record at the HOME game. Leicester will be beaten us again.