Despite being 9th, 28 points behind top, 9 points off 4th, losing more home fixtures in the League then we have in decades, there are some gooners who refuse to admit we have gone backwards since Arsene Wenger left. I even saw one reader claim that Mikel Arteta has better tactics then the most successful manager in our history.
At this point I don’t know what else Arsenal can do to show the grass wasn’t greener.
Just when I thought though that we had already hit rock bottom I watched the celebrations after our equaliser against Fulham.
Despite a draw being as helpful as a loss in our already outside bid to qualify for Europe through the League, there was Eddie Nketiah with the audacity to put his ear to the crowd in irony, while Martinelli jumped on his shoulders and Matt Ryan (up for the corner) joined in with the congratulations.
Now I’ll give Ryan the benefit of the doubt, the keeper is on loan at Brighton where expectations should be different.
Martinelli is a teenager who grew up in South America who is too young to remember the days where Arsenal were so good, a point at home against a side 18th in the table is a negative.
As for Eddie? In that one moment he showed he doesn’t have the mentality to help this club get back to their previous levels.
He recently did an interview bemoaning his lack of playing time, so when he scored a tap in, he made it all about himself.
He has his goal to show his friends and family, to watch on Match of The Day. The teams plight. Secondary.
It again shows the lack of leaders in the dressing room.
Our boss talks about standards and not accepting anyone who doesn’t follow them.
Well a Tony Adams, Vieira, Henry, etc, would be embarrassed by our position with 6 games to go. They wouldn’t be happy about a late goal which will put us in 11th if Leeds and Villa win their games in hand.
Forget about the legends.
How much grief did the likes of Walcott, Giroud, BFG, etc have to handle for ‘only finishing 4th‘?
We have gone from ‘only finishing 4th’ to our striker celebrating a draw against a side who will get relegated.
Like the FA Cup, the Europa League is in danger of papering over the cracks. I will breathe a sigh of relief if we lift that trophy because the ends justify the means.
Yet this idea that they will be legends? They are on course to be one of our worst squads in Prem history. You can’t judge a team on the short term of a knock out tournament, you need to look at the long term of the League and say it’s not okay.
The scary part of this weekend, youngsters are thinking it is. Young men who are told how great they are, despite struggling to be in the top half of the table (Smith Rowe and Saka were poor). That tells me the youth are not being shown the standards.
Which means that maybe the manager isn’t being shown the standards because maybe our owner simply doesn’t care where we finish, as he still gets a portion of TV rights worth billions.
Even as recently as Emery’s final home match, we equalised in stoppage time and Laca didn’t smile, didn’t have his peers jumping all over him. He trudged back with his head down. At full time the Emirates booed having barely cheered the equaliser.
Again how have we not gone backwards?
Before you say; ‘Dan’s negative’, ask yourself this.
If that was Man United or Chelsea, in 9th in April and their striker equalised against a team in the bottom three, would you mock him if he essentially ‘ssh’ed the crowd?
The fact is the expectation of those clubs would mean they would have ran back to the half way line.
We are meant to be competing with those clubs or at least that’s what we are told.
Dan Smith
Yeah but this goes for the whole team, celebrating a draw after the goal.
Sure, a last minute goal vs. top 4 team would be something to celebrate I guess.
But last minute goal, at HOME, against bottom 3 team. What is wrong with these guys? To me, at this point draws mean as little as loss against the likes of Fulham.
These are the games we should win, COMFORTABLY. Burnley, Palace, Fulham at home. That’s 7 points lost and 1 goal scored.
32 games played, 13 won. 40% win rate. We win 2 matches in every 5. That’s horrible result. Someoen must be made responsible.
What have you seen from this team to suggest that we should be beating the likes of Burnley, Palace, Fulham COMFORTABLY. Apart from history/trophies won, when currently sets us apart from those teams?
At least Fulham where able to smack Liverpool while they were down, we on the other hand made them look like their former selves.
Arsenal with a few more investments, can actually COMPETE, but this idea that we should be COMFORTABLY winning certain games with this current team is rubbish.
This is frankly a disgraceful article. All teams go through ups and downs. Liverpool were a horrendous team for years. Arsenal are rebuilding. Sensational reporting like this , is why fans are called plastic. Eddie is a young lad still trying to make his way in the game. Think, if that was you who scored a last minute equaliser for the team you support and love, wouldn’t you celebrate too. I certainly would. Constantly bashing the team and manager helps nobody. Get behind the players and be real fans.
Exactly!!
Now we should not care for about league standing, how we play in league because it won’t affect clubs revenue at all because of participation in ESL
Leave Nketiah out of your parade
Dan is a comedian.
After writing feisty often provocative articles Dan finishes with
‘Be kind in the comments.’
😄🙃😊
Your comment only worth reading this post – which was on all other accounts a huge mistake.
@Wyoming- I’m looking forward to you writing an article. Let’s see what comments you receive.
Dan- bang on point as usual (well mostly anyway)
I remember thinking exactly the same. It was as though we had just won the Champions League not scrambled a last minute point at home to Fulham. How times have changed. How quickly have we fallen to these depths.
Once again i agree with you Phil and Dan!
👍 What about forgoing the “celebration”, grabbing the ball out of the net and racing back to half way to restart play to go for the winner?
So when Arsenal celebrated fourth place in the league as though we won something it was different? You’ve forgotten how long we’ve been under achieving.
Nketiah was just frustated with the lack of playing time, so I don’t blame him
And his lack of playing time is because he was given plenty of chances and ….. could not do the business.
You nail it exactly many could not see that. I don’t know if people are really going there to watch football or take there body there to wait for goal and just celebrate.
I recollect some years back (when the “greatest manager” was incharge), we secured 4th place on the last day – and Ox and co. jumped with joy after the game akin to winning the league – that celebration (of accepting 4th place in a two horse race then with the CFC/City spending) was the begining of the end of our elite status. Celebrating a 4th place and celebrating a equliser are both dumb celebtrationss for a club of our stature. Eddie should have picked the ball from the net and ran to the centre – that would be the hallmark for the challengers – but with Xhaka, Leno, Elneny, Bellerin what can we challange? Mikel’s brilliance has brought us to the EL semis, unfortunately he cannot take to the pitch to play. Do we have a winner amonst the seniors for the youngsters to look upto? Most of the youngsters had to train with the “I care a damn” attitude players – good for us they got transfered this winter and the remaining few will be transfered this summer.
You lost me at Mikel’s Brilliance….yup no agenda there right.The brilliance of losing 13 matches with a team that’s not even that bad.
😂
The Farteta apologists would have you believe that losing 13 games is Wenger’s fault. I am sure they would kill to finish seventh to secure a EL spot, if they were honest.
The fact that our players on their day are able to play very well should tell you that the problem is not so much the lack of quality but tactics selections…as i said before this is no coincidence that we can’t put a decent run of wins together when the same team wins 2 games in a row instead of sticking with it what does the manager do?it breaks up the core/spine of the team by changing CB’s DM and subbing the in form players like Pépé .. like someone else pointed out other teams have no problems playing the same players most games week in week out but ARSENAL can’t why is that? what’s wrong with our players?
You’re right that it could be Arteta’s tactics etc, but it can also be the players. It’s why players like Keane bang on about consistency being the difference maker on who he considers great players and winners; players like that take responsibility and don’t let themselves drop.
Get over yourself.
He’s a 21 year old kid, who doesn’t get much playing time and scored a goal to salvage two points.
Speak about the ambitions of the club if you will, which are indeed lacking, but calling him out specifically? Come on.
Anyone on here who says they’d done differently, given the same circumstances, are lying to themselves.
nice
I am the one who admit ” We have gone backward since Arsene Wenger left us”
I wanted Wenger out, but little did I know we would end up being so shit!
Absolutely right he should run and get the ball from the net to start at once and try to score another goal. But celebrating was shameful !! to say the least.
You’re right, they should not celebrate at all – at which point I’m sure we won’t then all criticise them for not caring enough…
It’s a massive leap from us celebrating having scored a last-minute equaliser (who wouldn’t?!) to the rest of the conclusions you draw from it.
Can we not just treat it for what it is?
Maybe a balance
Don’t act like you won the match and have silenced the doubter
It not as if eddie is not good,he wastes a lot of chances of scoring goals,that while he lack game time.
You can’t blame a player for celebrating a last-minute result-changing goal – what would you prefer, that he just runs back to halfway? Come on – he has to celebrate. I was happy we scored – at least for a few moments, until i carried on being annoyed that we needed an equaliser in the first place, and that we’d actually just salvaged a point at home against one of the worst teams in the league……..
It’s so so apalling what Arsenal standards have reduced to. Even against Sheffield United, if I was a striker, I won’t celebrate that much knowing we are way down the league table. It’s just so annoying when you see the mentality of this team, it’s so poor. I watch Arsenal now not expecting anything from them.
If they win………… Fine
If they don’t……… Fine
If they draw………. Fine
To be fair these players spend a lot of hours practicing their goal celebrations, so when they score they have to use their well thought out stupidity. There was nothing to celebrate, in fact had there been a crowd, they would all have gone home long before he scored his massive tap in.
This article is too harsh on Nketiah, I think.
We need to put the circumstances into perspective
– the man’s age
– his pent up frustration at not playing
– the time of the goal(virtually the last kick) and
– he came in from the bench
Look, I can understand our frustrations as Arsenal supporters. It’s not the best of times for us. So we can be pardoned for venting our ire on anyone and everything.
I’m just thinking, what if that equalizer was against Villarreal in Spain after a goalless draw at the Emirates in the EL semis…….!
But it wasn’t
It was a draw to put us in 9th
We have gone backwards. Fans used to mock Wenger for finishing 4th. They also mocked him for wining FA cup. When Arteta wins the FA cup, it’s considered a success. Arteta has dragged Arsenal brand to the mud. Arteta has a better squad as compared to the final years of Wenger’s rein
Arteta has had to work with what the Senior Management created. Arsenal has never recovered after the decline of Wenger’s latter years.
Interesting comments. But we must not forget the real achievement will for ever be remembered buy Gooners, that we “played out from the back” and on several occasions rather successfully.
Dan you have the right to state any oponion you like mate. I agree we are not the force we were under our God Arsene and hopefully the anti Arsene brigade will have learned to be careful what you wish for.
But i do believe that you should look at the results of our last 10/15 matches and calculate where we would be if we had started like it?
After being a Gunner for over 71 years I can honestly say that we have a basis of a very top side and without the VAR cockups that strangely seem to be 90% against AFC, we would be arounf 5th place. Please list the top teams we have beaten since the arrival of Arteta such as…Liverpool, Man City, Chelski, Spurs, ManU, Leicester, Everton, West Ham, etc etc. A couplke of years ago the press loved stating that we never beat any of our top rivals! deep down I feel that we need another clear out to recover funds and some of the players to go will be a surprise to most. I suggest we sell AUBA, Belerin, Elneney, Leno, Cedric, Willock, Mavropanos and a few of the other loanies. Fresh blood added to the brilliant squad we have left would take us to the top.
wow!!!!!!
Think your see mate last 10-15 results have been poor
Fulham 1-1
West Ham 3-3
Liverpool 3-0
City 1-0
Villa 1-0/
Wolves 2-1
So suprising that none of you saw the manager urging the players back to restart the game.. I guess that won’t suit the agenda here right.. What more can Areta do to please you lot.. How many times did Laca tell Eleny to try forward pass and if not for fitness issues do you think Eleny would have started ahead of Partey.. Now we’re all sweating for Laca but if he didn’t start we would sue Areta.. Think back to the season before Liverpool won the UCL, we were down 3-0 then scored 3 to draw the game their next game they played in the Europa how many kilometres away then lost to them sp*ds.. We play away at Czech how far away, no rest, no training.. They just got activated and we still blame the manager.. Legends of old never the Europa
Yada yada yada
I really think this article is harsh! And whoever wrote it should stop living in the past! But you are entitled to your view.
Arsenal at the moment are where they deserve to be! Whether Nketiah ran back to the center line with the ball or not, there wasn’t much time for anything other than the final whistle.
Also I notice you are so quick to criticize the young players because they didn’t have a great game, the same young players that have stepped up and been responsible for near enough most of the good which isn’t a lot) Arsenal has done this season….Really??
Sounds like you would have been having the same complaint when the team was just making top 4….
Arsenal are where they are supposed to be and it will take a remarkable amount of investment (£) for Arsenal to get to compete with the top top teams! The owners know it which is why they want to join the European Super League.
This team will attract no one who wants to win trophies.
I agree. I didn’t even think about it in the moment but when we scored and I saw the teams reactions I hesitated to celebrate myself. something was off. This was it. We were celebrating an equalizer against Fulham as if we were in a title race. We are not in a title race.
On Jan. 4’th 2017 Giroud scored a 3-3 equaliser for us against Bournemouth in injury time. Bournemouth were down to 10 men.
Giroud wasted plenty of time celebrating his goal, instead of getting ball out of the nett and go for a quick restart and a possible winner.
Nothing new.
Context
We were 3-0 down
Cherries were not 18th
We were not 9th
Exactly. But that works the other way around.
When Giroud did it our league season was far from over, so at the time it was more important to go for even the smallest chance of a win.
I am sorry, but your indirect point that our standards have only dropped recently, doesn’t hold up.
Absolutely agree with Anders. I remember that game. I was really disappointed with Giroud that day.
The attitude has been poor for a long time.
Nketiah’s behaviour still needs to be called out. The fact so many seem to be defending him is a reflection of how low standards have become accepted.
Awk shut the hell up. It could be his last goal for The Arsenal. The team he’s been with for so many years. The league has been over for weeks now. I was happy to see him smiling after that goal. Good on him. Hope it made him feel better.
Its embarrassing that fans like you can’t see past this.
But even if Nketiah had picked the ball up from the net after he has scored the equalising goal for Arsenal. And ran to the centre with the ball to get the game restarted, which Fulham could waste time to delay restarting it immediately. But was there enough injury time left in the match for Arsenal to win possession and launch an attack into the Fulham area/box to attempt scoring the match winning goal?
Hold on, why exactly do Martinelli and Ryan get a pass again? This is a completely bias piece with a clear agenda against Nketiah as he isn’t popular with the fanbase right now. Martinelli has been at the club long enough to know the standards but gets a free pass because he’s popular, so you wouldn’t dare criticize him in any way. A hatchet job of the highest order. For me neither player did anything wrong, and had he not celebrated he’d probably be called moody or lacking passion for the club. But judge them by the same standards. The fact that Nketiah actually scored the goal, Martinelli did not, doesn’t seem to matter here as this is just a thinly-veiled excuse to criticize Nketiah.
Then you didn’t read article
Yes, I did, although I’m not exactly sure why I bothered. My question again is why criticize Nketiah but make excuses for Martinelli? Unless its for the reasons I mentioned above. Again, is this dismissive attitude your idea of being kind in the comments?
I criticised the whole dressing room for not setting an example / standards
Im not sure if article was waste of time why you would take time to comment?
You no the owner of the site wants me to write articles that gets comments
So thanks for that mate lol
I see!
Admin please bring our THUMBS UP/DOWN back.
I don’t like commenting some of the time, but want to show presence.
Don’t know what all the fuss is about an imposter like Nketian. It’s not all his fault that he is so ordinary, but just the fact that he has been given the opportunities that others haven’t. If the Fulham gamer was his “”moment ” then let him enjoy it. In light of all the other developments it is quite insignificant.
Arsenal have the talent to compete for top four, but they cannot get close.
Disagree? Of course you do. One idiot said Hector Bellerin is not good enough to play for Arsenal, which is exactly why Barcelona and PSG are interested in signing him. Because both of those teams cannot wait to sign poor players. The same fool lauded the performances of the young players. Clearly this near-sighted nitwit did not see Smith Rowe get shrugged off the ball like he was a paper doll. Clearly that person did not see Gabriel Martinelli constantly drive at the defense, taking on two, three, and four players before creating… yes, there it is… a turnover! He snatched a likely goal from Ceballos for… that’s right, an easy save! Saka has played well, he is having a good year, he is also young and like young players, he is up and down and cannot sustain the mental focus it takes to perform at his best game in and game out. Bellerin was far more effective on the flanks than either Saka or Smith-Rowe, but he was called for being poor. What game were you idiots watching? Pepe has outplayed all of Arsenal’s other wing players minute for minute, but Saka keeps starting. Willian kept starting. This is politics of results.
Look at Leicester’s attacking players. Vardy and Iheanacho or Aubameyang and Lacazette? Pepe or Praet? Saka or Castagne? In the middle of the park, with Ndidi and Tielmans, Leicester are better than Odegaard, smith-Rowe, Granit Xhaka, and Thomas Partey; but he pundits keep going on and on about Arsenal’s poor defense and how they need attackers and center backs. At the back, Fofana, Amartey, and Evans or Gabriel, Holding, and Mari?
Bernd Leno or Kaspar Schmeichel? I am no fan of Leno, he is not a top-class keeper and never will be. But he is significantly better than a fading Schmeichel.
Player for player, Arsenal, are the better team. But where it matters, in the technical area, Leicester have Brendan Rogers and Arsenal have Mikel Arteta. That is the main difference. The next important difference is in the owner’s box, where Leicester’s owners are committed and proud while Arsenal’s leadership is disinterested and craven.
So, the players are there, but not the manager. Not yet. You do not hire a manager with no experience and talk about either brilliance or a right now mentality. Mikel Arteta has no been brilliant. He’s not even been good. First-year managers rarely are. Ask Frank Lampard. Smart managers make smart choices.
Steven Gerard is an intelligent man. I say that not because I actually know this to be true. I’ve never met him. I likely never will. Which is too bad because he’s a man I admire. I say this because his intelligence is plain from the decisions he’s made.
He stayed with Liverpool when he could have left for Man U or Real Madrid because he was smart enough to know that at Liverpool he was core to the team, respected, and could contribute. At United, Barcelona, Real Madrid, PSG, Juventus, players are not contributors, they are cogs in a machine. Gerard was good enough to play for all of those teams, but one wrong move,a handful of sub-par performances, your career is over. Ask Gareth Bale, loaned back to Spurs be Real Madrid, so eager to rid themselves of a player they signed for a fortune, they are paying the majority of his salary. Ask Robin van Persie. Help the team to a title one week, out on your backside to Fenerbache the next.
Gerard, when he decided to move into management, he did not go to Liverpool, nor did he take on a massive rebuilding project, or a perennial relegation battler. He went to Rangers where he was taking the helm of a team with a solid core, a history of being the second team in a two-team league, and he has led them to a dominant league title. Soon; next year or the year after, he will make a move to a bigger team. He will do it having evolved as a manager, as a leader, and as a person; becoming someone who can lead a big team to a standard of stable, consistent excellence.
Arteta, by contrast, went from being Pep Guardiola’s understudy to one of the most coveted jobs in world football. No, Arsenal are not Real Madrid, but they were close, not that long ago. Neither are they Fulham or Newcastle or Crystal Palace. The pure fact is, Arteta is not ready to be Arsenal’s manager. He might be one day, but he is not now and unless he can see it, he never will be.
At the moment, Arteta does not have the experience to lead a team of players who, for the most part, are better than he ever was. He does not have he savvy, the guile, the the clout, or the political acumen to work with the front office to get what he needs to succeed. Front office dimwits are making player decisions, and that always has poor results.
This is not a criticism, but simple facts. Arsenal are going to be 8th if they get a little lucky. The math says they will be ninth. That’s the worst finish for the club since the Premier League era began. That is not progress.
It is not all Arteta’s fault. He was put in a job where Unai Emery, with far more experience, and a solid (if unspectacular) record of success, failed. He accepted the job, which was arrogant. It does not necessarily make him a bad manager, but it hints at it.
Arteta, all season, has shown an inability or unwillingness to make the tough decision. People praise him for benching Ozil. Why praise a man for a massive screw-up? Ozil outperformed every single #10 Arteta put in the side ahead of him, even in his worst year! Smith Rowe, everyone’s favorite, has no goals and a handful of assists. He will be a fine player one day. Right now, he’s promising, nothing more. Martin Odegaard has been called a “must” signing for the Gunners this summer. Why? He has 1 goal and no assists and half a year of football. He is young player with genuine talent, but no record of achievement. Neither of these two players who are praised up, down, and sideways, are half the player Ozil was for Arsenal, even at his worst, and Arteta knows it. The people reading this probably won’t know it, and if they do, they won’t admit it, but Arteta knows. And he let whatever issues there were between Ozil and team management, dictate his team selection. Which makes him both unfit to be Arsenal manager. If some back office hack (even if he is the owner’s son) can dictate your playing squad, you don’t belong on the sideline. Period.
Arsenal overpaid, Ozil, true. They paid him based on the market value of similar players at the time they signed him. Then there was a regime change and the new guy wanted the old guys out. Except Ozil made too much money and was too proud, too stubborn, and too angry to be bullied. So we got Joe Willock, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Dani Ceballos, Denis Suarez, Emile Smith-Rowe, Mateo Guendouzi, Lucas Torreira, and others at #10. None of them produced anything like Ozil’s numbers in his worst year. If you want to bench a player like Ozil, you have to have someone better to play in his place. Arsenal did not. Even if you believe Ozil was bad, you have to know the players who played instead of him were worse. The proof is in the table. Eighth is worse than 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th. 9th is worse still.
You see, even if the people reading this don’t know Ozil was better than the men playing ahead of him, the players knew. Arteta knew. If the team wins, well, no one cares, but when the team doesn’t win, the players question the decision making of the manager and the leadership. If Ozil gets benched and Ilkay Gundogan comes in, well, that’s fine. But if there is no one of similar quality and the team loses… well… you get an 8th place side and try to spin it as progress. The press swallow it because they’re stupid. The fans swallow it because, clearly they are all idiots. They are still buying season tickets for a team and hired a plane ot demand the club sack the manager. Seaosn ticket holders regularly demonize the club owner (he deserves it, but if you hate him, why are you making him rich?) See, the problem with what happened with Ozil and Pepe, and other players, less obviously, if the players know the club is losing because the team on the field is inferior to the team that could be on the field.
Not playing Ozil did not improve the team on the field, it hurt the team on the pitch. A smarter, tougher, more experienced manager would have leaked stories to the press about how hard Ozil was training, how smart he was, how badly the club needed him on the field and the front office nitwits would have caved because they think the press and TV pundits know more about managing a club than Arsene Wenger. Ozil would have come back into the team and Arsenal would have had another ten or twelve goals. Which translates into three or four more wins and three or four more draws. Which puts the club right back into a battle for top four, not on its knees, praying Leeds and Aston Villa lose so they do not finish the season as a bottom-half team.
There is really no point in bringing up Arsene Wenger. He’s gone. Run out of town by a bunch of idiots with our own former players; the very players who won titles under his leadership…. Yes, that’s you Paul Merson, Tony Adams, Martin Keown, and Ian Wright… leading the charge. I suppose I keep hoping that someone, anyone, will look back and realize they screwed the pooch and do something to fix it. And no, I do not mean rehire Wenger.
The table does not lie. That is the beauty of it. That is the cruelty of it. If you finish ninth you were the ninth best team in the league. Winning the Europa League will not, in any way, shape, or form, make Arsenal any better than a ninth place side.
There are reasons for the finish, but most fall to the club leadership, not the players. The men, and Arsenal’s decision makers are all men, running the club are out of their depth. They have no clue how to manage players, contracts or the team.
Arsenal’s owners are so sure the Gunners cannot compete for titles in the Premier League, they’re going to leave it. The club is going to crawl out of the Premier League like a oft-beaten cur, to join a European Super League, where, because there will be no relegation, they can keep raking in huge profits even as they finish bottom of this new league year in and year out.