It’s so good Arsenal’s season is over soon by Konstantin Mitov
Seven straight away defeats! Think about that for a moment. Fans of other teams tell me “careful what you wish for” with Wenger leaving. I can’t believe it can honestly be worse than losing every away game. The best thing about it is that there is only one away game left and this nightmare season is over.
Yesterday, we were looking dangerous, then conceded from a simple set piece. Nobody was marking Iheanacho, or expecting the ball to come back in the box. We had like 4 or 5 players sitting about 5 yards away from Kelechi without making a challenge. This has been all season.
This has been last season too. We cannot defend. I doubt we even train to defend. For years we’ve been riding on our quality of the players to get us results, as the manager is incapable of giving instructions. Then after the goal, instead of clearing the ball when pressured Mavropanos tried to be tricky and he tricked himself to a red card.
I refuse to blame young Konstantinos as this has been a theme of Wengers teams for the past 10 years. I can remember countless of times where one of our defenders has made a ridiculous mistake that cost us. This wound will start to heal next season if we appoint a man like Allegri, but it won’t happen in a day.
Besides our approach for the future will include young players as we will not spend as much as City or United, so I get the feeling that we’d like to mix big signings with young players to balance the books, and they have to learn somehow.
There was one young player who impressed again yesterday and that was Maitland-Niles. The guy got Pogba in his pocket against United and he was sublime yesterday as well. He has been played in all sorts of positions and done relatively well in all of them. His drive and determination for our goal is something few players in the squad have.
Afterwards though we gave away another silly penalty and I’ve lost count of how often it has happened, but I bet we gave away more than 10 this year and Cech has saved just one! These things are not one offs. They are reoccurring themes that need to be addressed, by the new manager, not just counted as one-offs like Wenger does every time.
We rested some players due to the world cup, but I want to know why we are a charity again? We’re paying them the big wages and starting next season with no points won away in 2018 is a monstrous problem. Defeats like yesterday matter, especially when you have to break a negative streak.
We have a major mentality issue. One that requires the new manager to be a great psychologist as well as a great coach. And it appears that we have cut our shortlist and we’ll start talking to the candidates soon. They include the likes of Allegri, Jardim, Arteta and Vierira.
Luis Enrique’s incredible wage and transfer budget demands make him an outsider. So out of the four left I’d be devastated if we bring in Arteta or Vieira. There’s no ex Arsenal player that I think is good enough to overcome this incredibly tough task. Paddy might come with the necessary respect in the dressing room, but his experience is hardly enough.
And for all the praise Arteta gets at City, remember how when Guardiola was sent off against Liverpool, Mikel just sat on the bench. I’m sorry, I don’t want another Wenger rooted to the chair. If we’re throwing ourselves into the ‘young manager’ risk, let’s go with Nagelsmann. He’s practically done something out of nothing and that’s somewhat close to the job at hand at Arsenal.
Allegri is the one man who ticks all the boxes in my opinion. He’s taken Juve to title after title having to lose some of his best players every year. Pirlo left, Vidal and Tevez went too, also Morata and Pogba. Then Bonucci and Alves last season, but Max has always come out with a squad good enough to turn around Spurs, make Madrid’s hair go up and do it all on a budget. He’s a master tactician and he’s more than capable of sorting out the defence.
Why would he leave Juventus though? Unless he wants a new challenge, he will challenge in the champions league again if he stays, rather than battle to get the top 4 trophy, which will be the obvious priority of the new manager’s first season here. If we don’t get him though, Jardim is the second best option, due to the unbelievable work he’s done with young players at Monaco, which will fit our financial structure.
It’s only the french league, but he still toppled PSG, knocked out Man City in the champions league and played some of the most exciting football in Europe. Will he fix our defence? Who knows, but he’s the second best choice on the proposed shortlist and he’s one where I believe if we make the call, he’d be tempted to take the job.
Anyway, we’ll know soon. The manager would like to be part of the transfer business and we would definitely want to have him before the world cup as it will be a short transfer window. The exciting times are coming. We just have to swallow another bad away day and the banter era will end.
Konstantin