This has been a very difficult season for all Arsenal players and fans, as we have seen our team fall away from contention for the Top Four extremely easily, and it was even worse to get knocked out of the FA Cup at the first hurdle by a Championship side.
But now we have had a mini-revival and are back to winning ways, even progressing in the Europa League at the San Siro. Our German defender Shkrodan Mustafi says that the revival began when Per Mertesacker called a team meeting so that everyone could air their views openly. “To be honest, this season has been more disappointing for us because we had bigger targets,” he told Arsenal.com. “One really big positive thing is that to be able to recover from such a period when everything goes bad and you’re not in form, to be close together and come out of it as a team is a really big, massive thing.
“I’ve been playing in a lot of teams across Europe and I’ve been playing in teams where we have been doing well, I’ve been playing in teams where we’ve been struggling, and it’s not easy to come out especially when you’re a big team.
“You find yourself fighting in every game against every opponent. I think you have to give credit to the team because we managed to come together and go back to the basics. Everyone was fighting for each other to try to get back on a winning streak.
“Everyone knew it was a difficult period. The meeting was about trying to listen to different opinions, different ideas and different feelings, and I think we found a way to try to change a bit.
“It’s not that easy because one meeting is not going to change a lot, especially not during the season when you’re playing every three days, but it was important to speak our opinions out loud. Overall it was about giving 110 per cent to try to get out of it, and I think we managed it well.”
Beating watford at home and AC Milan twice is hardly the stuff of Champions, but you can only beat what is put in front of you and it could be considered a good thing after losing the three previous games. We now have two home games to turn that into 5 in a row and hopefully we can carry on winning right until the end of the season and pick up a trophy on the way.
God bless Per Mertesacker!
I have lost all enthusiasm for the EPL, in fact, i consider it pre-season for Aubameyang and co.
They better start holding the meeting every week so as to win the Europa cos that obviously the only consolation left.
Yes, the rest of the EPL games should be the pre season for the new and young players
Plus the remaining EPL games would be good training matches for the Europa League
Changed what?
What has changed exactly?
This team and its manager are a joke.
The club captain who NEVER plays.
Just what is that all about???
This season is dead and finished and this kind of rubbish journalism makes people even more angrier.
So Mertesacker decided to do his job when it was far too late.
Big f**king deal.
How can you get behind such a spineless bunch of money grabbing mercenaries…
No pride at all…
It is strange to hear that Mertesacker, a retiring player, still has influence in the dressing room
You are right, there is nothing really changed and we are just watching the same old movie that has been repeated for more than a decade
But that old movie could have new interesting twists this year: Wenger out and Europa League trophy
Well done club captain Per, someone needed to get hold of this rabble and knock their heads together. I don’t know about Silent Stan, (unfair moniker in my opinion as we don’t hear much if ever anything from Chelsea’s Russian or many other owners) but where was Silent Wenger (ironic he’s lost his voice today) when needed to read the riot act.??
Wenger out, at the end of this season, not next one.
At least if he went today he could go quietly……….?
Someone at Arsenal should have been able to ignite the team motivation and assess what went wrong, at the beginning of this season, when the pressures are still high in the Premier League
Now most of our Premier League competitors have lost their interest, therefore it is easier to go back to winning forms without heavy pressures from the opponents
Similar old bullshits are repeated in each season and this is the manager’s job to revive his players’ spirit, not his retiring player’s job
Silent Stan is NOT an unfair moniker! Whereas Abramovitch attends every home game and is visible, caught on cameras, cheering every goal, Silent and ABSENT and COULDN’T CARE LESS Stan, to give him his full and more accurate title, is an immoral conman, sick joke and parasite! Happy now?
Not really Jon, Abramovic lives in London, Kroenke doesn’t. Absent Stan would be a better description. How do you know he is immoral, animal hunting apart, but then again you are very quick with your assassination opinions.
Did I or did I not say that he was absent too! Some of us fans feel it is wrong for any owner to live on a different continent, as Kroenke does but Abramovitch does not. It is immoral taking consultancy fees from the club you have bought on false pretences as Silent and Absent Stan did!
Yes you did which I acknowledge but does living on a different continent as the city owners do make it wrong? Of course it doesn’t. He bought the club so is ok to take a wage. So he takes a few million a year, a very small %. He is hardly bleeding our club dry. My main point was that Silent Stan is a stupid reference but Absent Stan not so.
Can’t see how he is doing anything immoral though.
GB, “Silent Stan is actually Stan Kroenke’s nickname in the US, as he never gives interviews.
I didn’t know that, thanks, but a lot of owners and chairmen don’t like doing interviews and some talk too much.
Winning the remaining games will be great, but won’t make up for the disappointment of this season…. although beating Stoke & Man United would be sweet ?
They won’t be great.
They will be meaningless just like this campaign under Wenger.
Trouble is – people pay a huge sum to watch this “team”
Wenger should be sacked for the performances alone…
Well sorry but it’ll be great for me. I am an Arsenal fan at the end of the day…. and I also want Wenger out
Wenger goes and Arsenal becomes a lower half of the table side. Heads explode left,right and centre.
Really?So Wenger leaves and the whole club falls apart at the seams?Oh well at least we will be playing plenty of London derbies against Brentford Orient Millwall Charlton so we have plenty to look forward to then.
@Phil
Don’t fall for that cheap comment bait. He knows what he has written is preposterous, he just wants to irritate and evoke a response from someone. Wenger staying is exactly what will turn us into a mid table team, hell, we are already heading there.
QD It’s not the first time this has occurred over the years and it takes what it takes to sort out.The BFG in his role as Club Captain was right to call the meeting and yell a few Hail Marys at whoever.But you still are left concerned yet again that Wenger is incapable now of motivating the team to perform.
All his teams up to and just past the Invincibles had strong characters throughout the team.Were are they now?No leadership on the pitch.No leadership from the Manager.
Absolutely Phil, just as I said.
There’s been a revival? I must have missed that.