Paul Merson doesn’t believe Arsenal are getting better despite West Ham win.
Arsenal’s season isn’t getting any better despite the Gunners finally getting a win at the tenth time of asking, according to Paul Merson.
The Gunners have had to change managers but it seems that their problems are deeply rooted, and Merson believes they are suffering from a crisis of confidence.
Arsenal’s board allowed Unai Emery to manage the team for seven games without a win before they axed him, it seems the Spaniard has left the players lacking confidence so much so that they need a series of results to get some of that back.
Merson believes that Arsenal only beat West Ham because the Hammers are also in a crisis and they are not playing at their best at the moment.
Writing in his Sky Sports column Merson said,
“Arsenal’s win at West Ham papered over huge cracks at the club. Don’t let the late turnaround fool you, Arsenal are heading nowhere.
“I’ve never seen a game like it. It comes back to the same old thing – confidence, confidence, confidence. It sums up the situations Arsenal find themselves in at the moment, and West Ham for that matter.
“If you’re not winning football matches your confidence goes, it’s the worst feeling in the world. It doesn’t matter how good you are as a player, when the confidence goes, that’s it.
“When Arsenal turned to Freddie Ljungberg, they wanted him to come in and steady the ship. They would have thought ‘we’re not going anywhere, we’re not going to get relegated and we can save a few quid’.
“But, all of a sudden, a couple of dodgy performances and it’s panic stations. I just don’t know where they go next.”
Whether Merson makes a good point or not is sort of irrelevant, to be honest. If Arsenal went on a 20 game unbeaten run, made the top four and was still in the Europa League and FA cup, Merson would still be negative. That is how I view him these days.
But for a lot of people, he does make sense, they feel he is right in his assessment and they have a lot of time for him. I respect that, we all have pundits who we listen to and who we don’t.
Arsenal’s next game is in the Europa League against Standard Liege and hopefully, it will be another win ahead of the clash with Man City on Sunday.
It appears it’s now a slugfest between Arteta and Ancelloti for the Arsenal manager role. Ancelloti seems to be just about edging it at the moment.
Let’s hope the powers that be make the correct decision rather than a quick decision.
In my opinion Ancelotti is the past and Arteta is the future.
Don’t want either Anchelotti or Artteta. Both of them are not a good option going forward. It should be Pochettino. Whoever the manager is must realize that the midfield porus because there are no runners in it apart from Willock and we need 2 strong commanding center backs
I’d love Poch too mate but his buy out clause we wouldn’t pay.
GB Arteta has never managed he is NOT a manager how many do I have to say it we want experience manager
Merson might often be negative about Arsenal. But I am afraid he’s right on Arsenal’s current situation.
Against West Ham, our attack got it right in the second half. But the rest of the team was really poor, especially during the first 60 minutes. Our midfield is too soft and gives away possession too easily. Defence was slightly better than in the previous matches, but not that impressive (opposition was quite poor) and always very sloppy when then try to go from the back. Our global ability to keep the ball is disastrous (it used to be Arsenal’s strength!!).
And we have no leader… The only one who has the right fighting attitude is Lacazette, but Ljungberg doesn’t seem to trust him so much…
Confidence is low and the win against West Ham won’t be enough to bring it back: if City presses us from the start or even scores in the first 15 minutes, West Ham win will be quickly forgotten…
well…our core/spine of the team is not even there….
how many players in the first eleven has played together for 2 seasons?
Merson has a point I’m afraid also I don’t want Ancellotti his record is enviable but he’s not a long term option. We should be looking at someone long term as we need sustainable change
Ancelotti could not even succeed at Napoli….
he probably will do well in a team like Psg or city where the core of the team is there and unlimited funds to buy any players
Merson and other pundits have been saying it for years and they are right in what they say,
it makes me crazy watching Arsenal lately every game we play we are giving so much time and space for the opposition team to gain ground or make passes, there seams to be no urgency to our defending in midfield and lately our accuracy in passing is just unacceptable many times we are on the attack and passes are made behind the players rather than in front to keep the momentum going, i blame our midfield who they never close down the opponents and makes our half decent defenders look like school boys
we should go all out and persuade Mauricio Pochettino to come to arsenal he should have no problems in doing so as Spuds sacked him their most successful manager they have ever had,
i like Arteta and Patrick Vieira but just don’t think they have the wining formula yet we might as well leave Ljungberg in charge at least he knows the current crop of players,
if Aubameyang wants to leave then we should let him for a high price or exchange for a good midfielder, and if Rooney and the likes of Michael Owen did it at sixteen then so can Gabriel Martinelli at eighteen with great wingers we have at the moment and mature Lacazette
i would also be happy with Eddie Howe but his also not hot on defending
Arsenal would do just as well with out a manager.
Two contrasting thoughts: who cares what Merson thinks, is number one. He is correct though, is number two.
haha, my thoughts exactly, jon.
I don’t recall Arsenal setting the football world on fire when Merson was at the club.
In fact, I remember him bringing the club in disrepute with his off the field antics.
As much as I like Merson he should learn to be quiet – his negativity is damaging the club he claims to love…
WINNING THT TITLE TWICE IS NOT CONSIDERED BY YOU TO BE SETTING THE WORLD ON FIRE , I SEE!
Merson is a total legend but of course the young bucks on here don’t go back that far.
Off topic, but I’ve just got tickets for An Evening With Liam Brady and Perry Groves, read it and weep, my heroes.
The team that played West Ham needs to gel. We will lose to Man city anyway.
I would rather play them today to build some confidence and coordination.
Cant argue with merse, he is just stating the glaringly obvious.