The possibility of Martin Odegaard rejoining Arsenal increased this weekend when he was left out of Real Madrid’s squad to kick off La Liga.
The Norwegian has made no secret of his desire to make it at Real Madrid, but this latest rejection might be the moment he has to accept he won’t get a chance at the Bernabeau.
Like Barcelona, Real are financially not in great shape so are unable to make a Galactico purchase. If you can’t break into their midfield now, you never will.
He was hoping that the departure of Zidane would increase the possibility of starting in Spain, but Carlo Ancelotti explained the Norwegian being dropped because, ‘I have 8 important players in this position.’
This contradicts reports his manager was willing to give him a sustained run of games.
At a time when Real need to raise funds, directors will notice if an asset valued 30-50 million is being paid to sit at home.
Arsenal and Madrid could now play poker and see who bluffs first.
Edu will be aware that Real need money so might sell at a cut price. Equally Perez knows how much pressure Arteta is under to add creativity to his midfield.
Personally, I wouldn’t offer more than 30 million. Anything more then that I think we can get better.
40 million for example is allotted to pay for almost the exact same midfield as last campaign.
The idea of a loan is to prove you deserve to stay more permanent.
He scored 1 goal in 14 prem appearances and recorded 2 assists.
Nothing special.
They say insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
Smith Rowe and Odegaard as our sole number 10 from January onwards didn’t get us near the top 4 and couldn’t beat Villarreal over two legs.
So why would the same combination close the gap between us and Man City (who brought Grealish), Man United (Sancho and Varane) or Chelsea (who brought back Lukaku)?
It begs the question if Arsenal were happy with his contribution on loan (and that’s what we have to assume) why are we waiting till now to negotiate?
Surely in a world where everyone speaks off record, we would have found out the likelihood of a permanent deal at any point he was with us.
If it wasn’t deemed that important to ask the question then we shouldn’t be investing so much money in him.
If he’s our first-choice creative midfielder, then it doesn’t reflect well on Edu that the season has started, and the 22-year-old is still not our player.
Instead, it seems our recruitment team are making things up as they go along
Only at Arsenal would you loan a midfielder who contributes to your worst finish in quarter of a century …. go round the houses …. just to end up with the same creative options.
When you consider it’s been over 12 months since it was clear Ozil wouldn’t kick a ball for us again, that’s a long time to find a replacement.
Our owner should be angry and embarrassed about finishing 8th, not accepting the bare minimum.
When Chelsea finished 4th, look which striker they brought, look at Man United when they needed a defender. When Arsenal needed a number 10, they yet again went to a big club with a begging bowl asking for their scraps.
Before the Euros some gooners believed we could get a Sterling or Grealish.
- couple of weeks ago we were linked with Bernardo Silva.
We have ended up with a midfielder we had in January. If that wasn’t enough from Jan – May, why would it be enough now?
Things change yet stay the same
Be Kind in The Comments
Dan
Sideway passes (like Arteta himself) he we come.
A solid player but nothing to write home about and is why he is not wanted in RM.
ESR may suffer as a consequence of him being signed since MA may push him out of position to accommodate him.
Hope I’m wrong but I saw nothing last season to think he was a game changer.
I would prefer Aouar
me to.
ArseOverTit I totally agree with you sideways or backwards and dare I say it not as good as ESR wasted 30 million bough Ramsdale could have signed Ryan for free. What are they playing at?
Definitely not! Arsenal needs creativity in the midfield. A player like Aouar. Also, can Arteta bring out the best from these individuals players. I doubt he can!
ESR>>>>>>>>>>Odegaard… I don’t see him improving our squad. Hope I’m wrong tho.
Always the same on this page don’t even no why I keep coming back to it uses are like a pack of babies no signing will be any good for uses
I don’t think he’s the answer, we needed a player that can change the game, make that killer pass to turn things around. I say no coz two seasons long with him we managed to loose as many games as possible I don’t know what has now changed to have him.
The guy is just 22, remember. Loads of progress to come.
If anyone fails to see the massive improvement in Arsenal’s game last season, after the introduction of Smith-Rowe and Odegaard, that person must be smoking something!
Agreed
I think he fits the tactics and style Arteta wants so lets give them the chance to show and judge at a later date.
Arteta has exhausted all chances 18 months on, he has proven he is not a coach just a ball watcher trying to experiment his way along. Kreonke is a purposeless owner with a clueless manager.
This is not how to build a team. Buying Odegaard, Teveres, Lokonga, Runasson, Partey, Willian, Cedric, Mari, Gabriel, and White in one and a half years. Arteta should be sacked.
He learnt all this from Guardiola. Just that this is the budget version
👍 Exactly right CM.
A player like Odegaard can never be good enough for Arsenal. Arsenal football club needs quality players who can bring immediate positive impact. The club should be desperate to sign better players in order to get back amongst the elites in English football, the truth is that these calibre of players would struggle against the big teams & if you can’t get good results against the big teams, the chance of breaking into the top four becomes very slim.
emeka Collins You have a rookie learner manager what else do you expect. What we need is someone like Conte
You can give Arteta city and I am telling you it won’t make too much of difference. All we in support of Arteta is just excuse after excuse. I don’t know which world the situation will be ideal so that Arteta can be judged. First fans balmed Wenger Mgmt and his signings for Arteta’s failure, then it was UE time so called rebellion headed by ozil and Kola, then it was pendamic, then it was not giving him £500 million to spent in transfer window then it was young players behaviour issue then it was red cards, then it was bad luck then it was every player one by one starting from Auba all the way back to Leno who underperformed only Saka was spared then it was judge him at end of season then it was judge him after one complete season then it was judge him in preseason then it was judge him coming season in first few games it keeps going and going..ppl keep giving excuses after excuses. While the excuses and positivity pile up the points and our league position are getting worse as time passes. Our football is pathetic, one direction and clueless while we spend millions on position which are not critical or for which we had replacements but completely ignore the position which is causing us to struggle offensively. Well if Arteta is so great then why don’t we see that in points table then ??
I thought we were supposed to be talking about Odegaard ie someone other thn Arteta for a change?
Precisely. It’s about excuses in order to protect The Mighty Arteta. We need to open our eyes. The main problem of Arsenal is Arteta
10 years down the road we will wonder how we ended up with Arteta.
Or it’s about finding any excuse to derail a conversation about anything else, and make it about disregard for Arteta… because that’s clearly what has happened here.
I’m not defending Arteta, but can we *please* talk about anything else without turning it into a bitch-fest about him?
True odegaard isn’t a,world class player yet but will definetly improve us,we signed him from Madrid after a long injury last season o. Laon and u also know is very difficult to settle in January,yet odegaard created more chances than any player in arsenal within this short stint,since odegaard joined in January we where 3rd if u calculate the table starting from the points in January.
He is young and also a leader ,captaining Norway at such a young age,I think is a good signing with a high ceiling.
He’s not a game changer, but he’ll increase our tactical options. He’s also not productive in scoring and assisting, but he could be productive in making pre-assists, pressing and passing
Arsenal should’ve bought a duel winner first instead of another ball retention master, but getting a new midfielder after selling one does make sense. I predict we’ll get a new CF if we can sell Lacazette
GAI, based on his current skill set as a footballer, don’t you think at 22 and once settled finally at Arsenal, he won’t grow into the job and have a potentially high ceiling?
Probably Ozzie, but his performance last season was a bit underwhelming. He’s a better choice than Maddison, Aouar and Silva though, because he’s played with our players for several months
GAI, remembering he did have injuries.
I agree his performance was a bit underwhelming but he had some nice glimpses of world class performance. I just wanted to remind that Pepe needed far more time to start delivering than Odegaard ever had, so I am positive at this moment, that he could become a much more complete and better asset in the not so far future.
I agree except that I think he could very well get a good number of direct assists in this team because his passing is actually very very good. However he’s not the type of player to transform the side entirely; step in the right direction.
The difference with ESR is that he’s better running with the ball and playing the short passes around the box whereas Ode is more of a playmaker who can make all kinds of passes, including the incisive passes that we really miss a lot of the time. These two should be able to work very well together – I’d like to see them switching positions during the match, think that could help make our attacks less predictable and harder to deal with
I’ll be glad if he makes plenty of pre-assists
About the position switch, I believe it’s what Arteta wants from Smith-Rowe and Odegaard
Agree GAI
We should still get Houssem Aouar. If we don’t Tottenham may well sign him and we will have had a pretty boring transfer window. Arteta was a boring player and he is creating an unexciting boring team. Odegaard is not an exciting game changing player as we saw last season. We need creativity.
Arteta has bought 10 players since his arrival and where are the results?
Sean, agree with you. Arsenal need a further midfield upgrade with Houssem Aouar and one of either Bruno Guimaraes (his team mate at Lyon, lower cost and possibility of a package deal) or Yves Bissouma. Then Arsenal will have a competitive midfield, once Party returns, with Lokonga and Xhaka available for support off the bench.
Stopped reading at “nothing special”.
We needed an attacking midfielder with signed Emile to a long contract. Needed a creative midfielder we signed Martin, not sure what the rant is for🙄
I hope it works. Not excited really. Madison would have been the statement signing.
An overrated, overpriced, injury prone player
that just happens to have a mercurial side
from time to time.
Yeah just what Arsenal need atm.
SMFH
Odegaard was injured half his loan here 🙄
👍
Nope!
He’s an upgrade on Ceballos that’s for sure. I’ve never doubted his technical ability but his lack of pace could prove to be a difficulty in the modern high pressing game. I hope he proves me wrong.
No one is suggesting for one moment that one player is the answer to all of Arsenal’s problems.
We should perhaps ask how good is Odegaard and what is his ceilling especially compared to other alternatives.
ESR is a somewhat limted but fiesty direct midfielder currently being trialed at 10.
But ESR is also young, English and free.
So a place has to be found for this bundle of energy.
Odegaard is also young but will apparently cost 40m+.
Is this former prodigy worth the fee?
Ode hardly played at all for RM in his 6 years
in fact he has spent 99% of his time on loan including a 5 month loan spell at Arsenal last season.
The general consensus is that Ode is solid and reliable but not yet a dynamic game changer.
But Odegaard falls within the clubs new risk aversion parameters, young, reasonable fee, coachable, some ceiling potential and decent resale value.
So I am comfortable with this decision and welcome the young man back to the club and wish him and the club are long and successful association.
Agree with you (as usual!) Fairfan.
No he is not the panacea for all our problems. He has limitations (pace, beating players, scoring) but I still like him and I’m glad if he comes. He came to a new league for a few months only, got injured, played in a team performing poorly. He had only two excellent games, but if he’s done it once he can do it again. He was only ok, but will be way better this time. He’s not the perfect choice as we already have similar players to him, and ideally we need thrusting, physical goal scorers who can beat players, but he is still potentially one of the best players in the world so whats not to like? He’s a big name and young so there’s resale value there if it doesnt work out. I don’t belive he will hinder ESRs development as they are different types of players, and ESR is very versatile. Surely we want more than one AM or are we planning on going all season with just 11 players? I get annoyed with these “dont by him as he will stop xxx young player”. comments Its so short sighted and unamitious. Would love Aouar as well if he really is going cheap but not sure what cash we have. An Odegaard loan to buy would be ideal. I admire that he wants to play and not do an Ozil on the bench.
Not my first choice maybe but still a positive move both for now and in future.
Come on over, Martin.
🙂
HIS SIX YEARS AT RM BEGAN AGED 16.
Seems a little harsh to expect such a then mid teens young player to pull up trees!
At 22, soon 23 he is now ready and although he is no KDB YET for certain, the fact he was MA’s preferred summer choice all along, tells me that he is better than many of the “I know better than MA” types of know it all on here can ever realise.
It seems to me that every other Gooner seriously believes themself to know more about football and what we need than our manager.
And that is, if for no other reason than statistically, clearly NONSENSE!
In what way is Smith Rowe limited?
Arsenal fans and Lamentations
Look Odergaard is a good player but not a game changer, he isnt going to pull up any trees but he wont let us down, just a ball mover really. I keep saying it, our transfer window has been totally underwhelming. It can’t be dressed up to be anything other.
I think he can be though Reggie – he has the talent to be a mover and shaker once he’s settled AND IF Arteta allows him to be (but that’s a big IF!).
👍 There’s an excellent footballer in there.
Not good enough. An entire summer window wasted and back to square one. How lazy from Arteta and Edu. Any excuse they make must not wash. From what I saw last season Odergaard was a competent player,but never one who could change the direction of a game. Along side Xhaka he’ll fit in well with the turtle paced, low in ideas , fail safe football that Arteta aspires to. Why bother watching that rubbish.
Joe, my personal opinion is that Odergaards cautious play was more down to Arteta’s orders than Odergaards choice. Agree about the pca though!
pace
No
He wasn’t very convincing his first loan here. That’s why our opinions are mostly negative. He’s got talent but I dont think he’s right for premier league overall. And I highly doubt Arteta is the one who is going to make him great. Hopefully next manager this season can get something out of him.
Agree RSH – lots of possible reasons he didn’t pull up trees, but for me the most likely he was obeying the orders of Mr Negative.
I normally like your articles but this is overly pessimistic to the point that is kinda of silly. You didn’t back your claim with any analytics, presumably because they would invalidate your claim about his creative abilities last season. Using this logic Saka wasn’t anything special either with 5 goals and 3 assists in *32* games which is 2-2/3 as many matches, which ofc is absurd. Not to mention odegaard was joining a new team mid season during Covid.
Also you keep mentioning how he wasn’t good enough to elevate us into the top 6 or even top 4 but.. uhm didn’t we finish with the 2nd or 3rd best 2nd half record after the winter break? Just saying…
Exactly. We played by far, our best football with MO and ESR in the side. But the naysayers ignore that, the fact that he was dealing with an injury, adapting to a new league and teammates, is just 22, captains his national team and has big potential. I get the feeling most of them just think MO will never improve from last year and just want a shiny new toy (Madisson or Aouar) because the grass must be greener.
Should we call this pessimism platform? Why do some people never see anything good that Arsenal does? I recall very well that we wanted Odegaard to stay but Real indicated that they wanted him back. What should we have done? Now that reality has dawned on them they have made a U-turn! All of us saw Odegaard and know what to expect from him. Whether he is top notch or mediocre will be determined on the pitch and not by a pessimist’s comments.
I feel we need to give our manager and his team the benefit of doubt and see how they perform this season. There is nothing extraordinary about losing an opening game to a newly promoted team on their home ground. We need a little more composure and a sense of realism so as to appreciate our team.
For those who wish Arteta out I need to just reiterate that this is a new manager on the job and needs our support in every way. Let us give him up to the end of the year and see where we will be. We should not imagine that the Chelsea formula works for every club. Man U tried it.. They had David Moyes, Louis Van Gaal and Jose Mourinho all in a short span of time but did it work for them? Perhaps Arsenal is in the class of Man U which needs stability to thrive. No two situations will always be the same. Ambition is good but unrealistic ambition is a recipe for disaster! Let us take it one step at a time and then see how much we achieve.
you seem to really like, albeit inappropriately, to use the word “we” when discussing club-related issues, almost like there was a secret meeting where you and other like-minded fans determined that “we” wanted Ode back, which is clearly just your passive aggressive way of disregarding all those well-intentioned and cerebral supporters who were never impressed with the notion of this player coming here in the first place, especially with assurances that saw ESR shoehorned out wide, let alone interested in our club allocating considerable funds to bring this rather slow-footed and timid player, who doesn’t seem to solve any of our secondary scoring issues, back into the fold on a permanent basis…just saying
^this!
I am in no mood to argue with you on whether or not majority of fans like Odegaard because I have not carried out a census. However I see nothing wrong with using ‘we’ to refer to a collective. When I say we need to give the benefit of doubt I am referring to the rational fans and not the emotional ones because the emotional ones are always unpredictable.
I am very cognisant of the fact that emotions have never achieved any positive results. More often than not emotions lead to irrational decisions which have long term negative consequences. I am sure you are aware of that.
I don’t care one iota if you’re in the mood or not Mr. Rusa, as no one is forcing you to respond….you’re certainly not doing me any favours, so don’t get it twisted…if it was up to me I wouldn’t care if you didn’t provide another one of your typically passive aggressive and self-absorbed commentaries ever…btw and most importantly, you, my little friend, have got the whole thing backwards, as my insights may appear emotional due to my chosen verbiage, but the underlying messages are based entirely on rational thoughts, unlike someone I know(just so you know, as you tend to get confused, it’s you that I’m referencing there)
He is correctly talking about the fact that the club which we all support made Ode priority. The fact he was number 1 for chances created, expected assists and passes in the final 3rd is why hes been signed. 2nd for possession won in the final 3rd too. We were 2nd in his time at the club. Still only 22. Just saying.
Angus, I already addressed your ridiculous cherry-picking statistical wet dream…whenever you want to compare apples to apples, which doesn’t seem to be in your wheelhouse, let me know…I’m starting to think that you don’t actually watch the games, but instead just watch the highlights
Yes, Odegaard was an important player on last season when Arsenal turned their ship and was a top-4 team in the league when counting only the points from the second half of the season.
It’s silly and not fun anymore that people look only the final table of the season and they dont realise that Arsenal had a splitbrain season…while the first half of the season was something to forget about, thei really were a top team on second half. If they would have been as good on first half of the season they would have been in title race.
My understanding of the situation is RM is still interested in him, he is not a scrap, some news outlet has reported that they have inserted a clause if ever arsenal decided to sell him RM will have the first priority.
Along with goals and assists I feel playing style is also important..
Finding pockets of space
Twist and turns
Finding players running off the shoulders of defender… I still remember we were 3-2 down against Westham and Odegaard found superbly Pépé on right wing with perfectly weighted ball and Pépé just put that ball in Box and Lacazzett easily met that cross
That reverse ball to Pépé was really good…
Assist was on the name of Pépé but that chance was created by Odegaard
In the same match at the Odegaard again sent Pépé on goal but he missed it…
Anyone who thought Arsenal had a chance of signing Sterling or Grealish is delusional.
Since the departure of Wenger, we’ve already spent £400 million on players, but the results shows otherwise. Arteta should be fired
3 left-footed players (Saka, Pepe and Ode) let’s see how MA will use them now, I hope he doesn’t do the same thing he is doing with Pepe who should’ve started on left as he showed more potential.
Now we don’t have any excuse to play CF on the left I guess MA!!
The main issue here is… how on earth did we manage to spend 135 million pounds on a bunch of guys that dont dramatically improve our team???
Unbelievable!
So true, once again Nivo…I was just thinking how underwhelming this transfer season has been, especially considering it has been the most expensive singular window since our arrival at the Emirates…of course I like the depth pieces in Nuno and Lokonga, but only Arsenal could spend north of 100M without creating any real buzz and not even PROPERLY addressing our most pressing NEEDS…it’s so Arteta, as even his windows are as boring and ineffectual as his tactics…it reminds me, for some reason, of the summer when we only got Cech, when we had everything to play
everything to play for
Martin Ødegaard played more passes into the box (63) and created more chances (20) than any other Arsenal player managed after his PL debut last season — despite starting just 9/18 games.
That sounds good to me! Forward, rather than backwards/sideways! Hallelujah!
He may not be everyone’s cup of tea, just like AR isn’t mine, but surely our frustrations should be aimed at the people who brought them here rather than the players themselves?
Good luck to MO, and if he does play on Sunday, more of those stats above please!
If there is some way of grading us fan’s performance like players on the pitch, right now we’d get a big zero. Every player, manager, and staffs related to football would bash us for our poor support. Yes, its very frustrating watching Arsenal’s game these days and the results aren’t helping us either. But one thing i wouldn’t do for sure is criticise a player who hasn’t even touched a ball for Arsenal this season. This article speaks sheer negativity.
The biggest problem is Arteta. Players we have in hand are not that bad, but Arteta makes them unconfident and force them to play the way not to exploit their strength.
Everyone can see how uncomfortably Auba performs at left wing. His skillset doesn’t allow him to control the ball nicely and make any difference there.
And Pepe prefers to play fast, using his speed to remove defenders. But Arteta for some reason instructs the team play slow with short passes, no efficient pieces set for counter attack. In the end, Pepe has to cope with 2-3 defenders who are well prepared to anticipate and catch his actions.
Such a huge disappointment for a so called Pep ver.2!
To answer the question whether Martin Odegaard even goes some way towards solving Arsenal’s problems, one first has to accurately analyse what Arsenal’s problems are?
In my view one of Arsenal’s biggest problems in midfield has been the lack of physicality in midfield, resulting in Arsenal losing the midfield battle and being bullied. The acquisition of Thomas Partey has partly addressed this, as exemplified when he is fit to play. Lokonga is one for the future but needs to be phased in. Odegaard does have the physicality to improve the situation if he can reproduce consistent performances to what he showed in the 3-3 draw with West Ham, when he almost single handedly dragged Arsenal back from 0-3 down.
Arsenal has not had a decent reliable DM since Gilberto Silve left, thus I would like one of Bruno Guimaraes or Yve Bissouma bought, to allow Thomas Partey to play further forward as a box to box midfielder.
This would help the defense, ball recovery and driving the ball forward to improve the goal productivity from midfield.
The last piece of the midfield puzzle would be ACM Houssem Aouar to provide the midfield attacking threat to work with Odegaard, ESR or Saka to score or unlock defences for the forward line.
Thus Martin Odegaard is part of the solution, but Aouar and one of Guimaraes or Bissouma are required as well. All these players are available and want to play for Arsenal, even without European football. Now all Arsenal need is those in power to “make us very excited”.
Oz forget it, we are not signing for midfield anymore in this window.
Well let’s say it’s highly impossible but with arsenal, never say never, but I’ll be surprised if it happened.
On your comment about physicality, I guess this is one of the reasons Xhaka get picked by all our managers as he is strong and rarely get injured.
I’ll like to ask you, how much of Aouar games did you watch last season? Most of us demanding Aouar only watched him against city in ucl last 2 season and with the way arsenal aggressively went for him last summer, one would expect us to go back especially now that Lyon has lowered the price but I wonder why they lowered his price and why he is still available so I’ll like to know if he is still the player we saw 2 season ago or he just a one season wonder player
I don’t think we will buy another DM now that Xhaka has committed to long contract but with Ode we can play 433
What a mouthwatering line up
Xhaka suppling those delicious pin point passes on to the Zindane like toes of Odegaard ,4-4-3 ?I would go 1-2-4 with those 2 in the team the opposition won’t know what’s tickled their feet .
If this is the process everyone’s been going on about ,im all for it ,can’t bloody wait .
Nice work DK…we’ve been saying it for years, we need less steel in the middle…not to mention, scoring is so overrated
Quite a few, Adajim, not full games, but the highlights broadcast on YouTube, both Lyon wins and losses.
My concern always was that Aouar and Guimaraes would not come to Arsenal due to no European competition, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. I thought Arsenal might have an advantage with Guimaraes with Edu, Martinelli and Gabriel as the Brazilian connection.
I don’t really in that we still need a more forward creative player … smith rowe isn’t yet the quality needed and may or may not get there .. at this point the only option is aouer as Silva not interested … an alternative would be to play saka just behind the forward line instead of out wide .. still a mid field of partey lukonga and ostegaard could work under the right manager … but there’s the rub!!
I think Ødegaard is a very good player. People seem to forget he was injured after international duty last season. People also seem to focus only on assists and goals, seeming to forget how many times in those games he was third to last on the ball, many times opening the defense for play in and around the box.
In my opinion what we really need now in a good RB,
Dan, I get your point and mostly agree with it. We have spent around 100 million net on 4 players out of which our biggest signing has been a disappointing ball watching CB. I like MO having followed him since he joined Real(my second favorite team after the gunners). There is an issue with pace, but I believe he can be someone who has that vision to play passes. He is a creative solution, and players can benefit in games like Brentford(not sure though because of that left attack thing we repeat nowadays). He provides a different skill set to ESR. If the manager is willing and creative enough, he can also pair someone strong enough with Ode to play mid with ESR ahead. This may create a pseudo deep lying playmaker position for him where he can pass forward.
It looks underwhelming no doubt, but it gives us options and options are what we need right now…. although I doubt if the manager is willing to utilise those options lol.
Anyway, a welcome opinion article from you after about 5 propaganda articles from the artificial intelligence (as VasC says lol).
More confused about our AFC right now, there seems to be a lack of purpose, and the signings feel like panic buys. We dont look like a team that can play fast paced football anymore. Hoping for the best but expecting the worst, lets wait and see.
No single player can be a 100% solution to Arsenal’s problem. There’s still the issue of playing style, tactics, overall confidence and team spirit.
All these are required to have a winning team.
Can we really conclude on Odegaard after just a few injury plagued months with us? I don’t think so. Did he improve our team when he joined? I think so.
He may not have set the EPL on fire, but he improved the team.
He’s 22 so there’s still room for improvement, under the right coaching. I hope Arteta has that ability.
If we can get Aouar or Bissouma to give us further options in midfield, that would be great, but Arteta needs to resolve whatever issues he’s having with Auba and Laca, cos I personally don’t believe those guys are ill.
If we could get a good back up keeper on loan and invest the money we want to use on Ramsdale on Aouar or Bissouma, It could make a whole lot of difference.
What about the supporters rated for their performance pre wenger days. For sure they caused this on theirselves with the #tag wenger out.
Odegaard is a talented player, that would subtly impact any team he plays for….And am happy to see him back….buh how our pundit uses him,saka,Pepe, ESR and our CFs is the issue for me….
I keep seeing this “we were 3rd/4th best, second half of the season talk”
it’s true but we all watched those matches and know the reality that stats wouldn’t show…
easy losses, funny draws and difficult wins eg the bus packing victory at Chelsea. LOL
December…3 losses 1 draw 2 wins
January…..3 wins 2 draws
Feb….3 losses 2 wins
Mar…..2 draws 1win
Apr….1 loss 1 draw 1 win
(7 wins, 5 draws, 4 losses) 26 outta 48 points from JAN-APR
May…..5 wins (4 wins after Europa exit and when we had nothing to play for in the league again actually made stats look good)
Let’s see how it all goes….we can only hope for the best
Yup this is the exact thing I feel those who cite the 2nd/3rd best side for 24 games ignore. Merely getting on a pedestal of 2nd best team is not enough IMHO. MA also oversaw losses in that period, courtesy of a wierdly imbalanced tactic which led us to finish 6 pts of 4th. We had abysmal games during tht spell, and games we could have won were Burnley, Villa away, Wolves etc to gain those 6 points. If not then what use is that metric. MA can be defended by saying he has introduced defensive solidity (albeit imbalanced and dont know now with ball watching White), a good initial tactical plan, matches where he showed good tactical acumen, switching Saka to RW..
3rd best team does not accurately portray all positives lol.
Instruments and Sid, Arsenal under Terry Neil lost 11 games and he was sacked. In season 2020/21 Arsenal under Arteta lost 13 games and he is still here. Different times, different expectations and standards.
Ozzie, we can factor in the pandemic but it was again for everyone. We can point at AW and UE but then they have been gone for how long and their players hardly get in the side nowadays except Xhaka and Leno and Lacazette, Aubameyang.
Then what about the owners? But this season money has been spent. So after most arguements we can come to the conclusion that the judging standards are not consistent as you have often said. At this time, lets just hope that atleast for his sake MA will change that horrendous left flipper pinball strategy or get enablers to make it work. I am a fan of counterattacking style more than possesion style, and was overjoyed when Le prof used that against City to win 0-2 somewhere in 2014. Likewise initially was enjoying Emery tinkering based on specific opponents. It is something which can be done successfully, but he kinda overused it. Similarly MA switching tactics when he came was one reason I was firmly behind him till we lost the Europa semis. Now I support him on matchdays and remain neutral in debates. He seems to have inherited a combo of le prof’s bad habit of being stubborn with Emery’s sometimes confusing XI selection. And that leads to something which is more appropriate in pinball most of the time😂😂
Sid, if you check Emery’s selections you will Se that injuries to key players, particularly defenders, including long term to Koscielny, Holding, Bellerin, Chambers, made it difficult for Emery.
We were 2nd not 3rd not 4th. We were 2nd it also was 24 games not half the season closer to 2/3rds of the season. Highlighting the losses/draws doesn’t change the fact we picked up more points than United/Chelsea/Liverpool/Leicester etc. in that period. Out of interest why do you think we had more points in that period? Because those clubs dropped more points. So why are they being held to a different standard? They had easy losses and draws in that period but that is fine for everyone except Arsenal? The 2 wins in December were the last two after Smith-Rowe returned which you have deliberately cut off to make it seem worse.
The actual figure is played 24 won 13, drew 5, lost 4. 44 out of 72. Talk about cherry picking you leave off the earliest 2 wins and then also leave off the most recent 5 wins to try and make it look bad. I just state the entire 24 as a whole. Others can state the 38 as whole and correctly be right that the 38 was bad. My point is the 24 most recent should at least allow for some optimism somewhere not the constant negativity we have had on these boards.
Want to get more detailed only 1 of the four lost games were by more than one goal (Liverpool) whilst 11 of the 13 wins were by more than one goal so clearly luck would be far more likely to swing more points our way not less in that period.
Ode (subject of this article) has literally only played for us when we were the 2nd most points in the league. You can blame Arteta for the period before Christmas that was bad. You can’t blame Ode/Smith-Rowe/Martinelli/Chambers or any of the new boys because they didn’t play a single minute of it. As stands Ramsdale/Tavares/White/Chambers/Smith-Rowe/Odegaard/Lokonga/Martinelli/Balogun are all players in the 1st team squad this year who played not one single minute in the poor results we had last year. To suggest nothing will change over the course of the season when you have 9 1st team players who played zero minutes in your bad run the previous season is mental.
Everyone keeps acting like the gap is massive too it was 6 points. The 8 out of 36 points 2 win 2 draw 8 loss run at the start is the reason for it. Emery was sacked 8 points off (going backwards fast) and Wenger went finishing 13 points off so there are no double standards here.
Regardless Arteta has to perform this season or he will be gone no matter what. Quite why fans are so passionate about claiming it will happen no matter what is extremely odd to me. It’s this obsession with being negative about absolutely everything that is annoying me. He’ll be judged on Ode/White in particular as he went out his way for them. Ode is basically guaranteed to make people eat their words because he was slept on last year.
At this point, even if you buy C Rinaldo, Messi, Mbappe, Hakimi and even bring in Pep as coach, Arsenal fans will still not be satisfied. Funny anyway
Dan, I think this is defeatist mentality to feel that we went with a begging bowl
Sometimes in business you have to play the game. If we signed him straight off the loan end than would the player be left thinking for the rest of his career, I turned my back on a chance with RM. It doesnt make sense to do that when he went so young.
They had to have their dance. RM needed to raise money and conclude who is in or out. Like how we had to sell Willock and Martinez they had to sell good players too.
So when it was time, he knew his career at RM was over and he could push on. It also helped us achieve a good price. If he reaches his potential they he could double his fee. Why not? He is 22 yrs old.
It’s not for us to condemn a player before he has already signed, nor the club for making signings.
If you want Maddison or Bernardo Silva or alike than I suggest playing video games and turning your living room into the Emirates.
Fans with short term memory forget the likes of Bergkamp who came with disappointment at Inter, Overmars had just got back from a Crucial Ligament injury and out for awhile and alot to prove…
We have always been a club that gave chances to people it’s in our dna…
Also Ode is not a cast off. He is valued highly by Madridistas who are appalled by his supposed 35 million euro sale to us. He was La Liga’s best midfielder for the 2019-20 season with Sociedad, creating more chances than Messi himself. There are obvious downsides like lack of pace, maybe injury prone and maynot be a high impact/game changing player. But by no means is he a Madrid cast off.
👍 Tom, very valid points.
no
He is a ball player and have some skills tactically , I prefer him to Madison but our goal keeper can’t play from behind ,It’s a big problem to arteta style of play cos we don’t have a player like giroud to keep the ball upfront so we must play from behind
Wasn’t that special
Lost to city , liverpoo l and Everton at home
Lost to wolves and villa and saints
Drew with palace , West ham , Fulham ,burnley
So let’s calm down
Finally, our no.8 is arrived… Let’s give our support.
Smith-Rowe/Ode had us in 2nd when they played that is a fact (overall form in the league was poor because the top sides suffered more from the fixture congestion but we were 2nd however you dice it and suffered the same congestion.) Neither was even a tiny part of the 12 game run prior to Smith-Rowe returning from injury that had us finish 8th. Your claiming players who played zero minutes in that run that had us 8th are now guaranteeing more of the same which is in itself absolutely insane.
You highlight Ode’s goal involvement as a negative yet it was higher per minute than Saka who I assume you have no issues with both need better this year along with Smith-Rowe if we are to have a good season though. In his time at the club Ode was 1st for expected assists, 1st for chances created, 1st for final third passes completed and 2nd for possession won in the attacking third. Would suggest those are all the key stats for his position even if he did only end 4th for assists in that time. The possession won stat also highlights the improvement a player like him is on Ozil. He’s still what 22? Not even prime and was already our best creative player in his time at club across the board.
Honestly Dan I expect more from you than finishing with an objectively false statement like “We have ended up with a midfielder we had in January. If that wasn’t enough from Jan – May, why would it be enough now?” We were the 2nd best team in the league in that very time period you quote, how don’t people see the lunacy in this kind of statement. We had a bad season based on a bad run of 12 games that ended on Boxing day (You can fairly blame Arteta for that at least.) Ode wasn’t part of that neither was Smith-Rowe yet a portion of our fans are nodding in agreement that they were. Truly is madness.