Players Who Have Regressed this Season
Since Mikel Arteta was hired by Edu and the Arsenal hierarchy, most Arsenal players have seen a steady improvement in their performances. From the likes of Mohammed Elneny to Nicolas Pepe, individual performances have mostly gotten better and better. That is one of the signs of top coaching at work. However, not every pancake flips the same. Here’s a list of players who have had it worse under the Spanish revolution.
- Hector Bellerin.
Once the belle of the Arsenal academy and constantly linked with Barcelona, Bellerin struggled with the effects of a serious long-term injury and has not returned to the same insane physical condition he was in during his pomp.
His rapid pace, once one of the best in the world, has been reduced to nothing. Though he still has the movement and the passing to contribute in the final third and has become a force in the dressing room, the Spanish fashionista generally looks leggy and ineffective on the pitch.
- Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
I know, I know. He’s back in form and getting on the end of chances regularly now but did he go through the slump of his career earlier in the season for us?
Slump or not, Aubameyang has very much earned the right to being our best player as well as the right to be considered as a world-class forward. That kind of incisive quality was barely there earlier in the season and he looked tortured out wide and playing centrally. To make a decent season out of this, Aubameyang must contribute to a deep Europa League run and maintain his form.
Most Arsenal players have seen an upturn in their game except for Hector Bellerin. Even Aubameyang has shown multiple flashes of real quality this season. This is a very good thing as it means that they will be more attractive to potential suitors in the transfer window.
Agboola Israel
Suggesting Aubamayang is sold in next window?
Sorry you are a plank!.
Anyway, off topic because the topic is wrong, I’m watching Fulham beat Liverpool and want to know why we don’t fight like they do, for every ball, every tackle is fully committed. They are playing for their lives, why don’t we?
Answers on a postcard please…..
Sorry, but I have run out of postcards. Will on JA do, and if so I wait to hear from you, if thats OK, before giving my opinion!
If I had your address Jon I’d love to send you a postcard, not that the kids on here would know what it is.
What’s a postcard?
You are no longer being carded to get a pint…
Aubamayang , unless bearing down on goal via a thru ball contributes nothing to the team. No pressing, tackling, tracking back. His passing is average. He is not the type of striker Artetas set up needs
Which set up?🙄… Arteta has no set up whatsoever, he’s patternless.
Auba simply has a dip in form. He has not been tracking back, tackling or have a good pass since when we bought him. We bought him because of goals and he has been delivering for Over 2 seasons now except this season
Sorry if everyone has improved since Arteta arrived apart from 2 players how come we finished 8th and are now 10th
Dan please don’t use logic on here, some people can’t handle it and will get highly offended.
👍 👍
A specific subset of Arsenal fans are infected with a an incurable illness. There is no other way to explain how they react to the team news, the play on the field, the decisions of the coaches and managers, or even who owns the team.
This illness is resistant to all known antibiotics, treatments and even logic. It is impossible to know how man individuals are infected – based on their presence in the Arsenal community, it could be a vast number or a relatively small, vocal minority.
This illness seems to be a variant of The Invincibles Syndrome; a disease in which Arsenal supporters have come to the delusional conclusion that they are entitled to the Premier League title, and nothing else is acceptable; much the same way Trump supporters believe that a corrupt, sexual predator is entitled to hold power regardless of the results of the elections. Another side-effect of this disease is the need to pile-on; repeating, ad nauseum, the fever-induced ravings of others with the illness.
This sickness led to the ousting of Arsenal’s greatest-ever manager, when the disease spread to the club’s hierarchy and ownership. We all know where that led, 8th place last season and a current tenth place after two-thirds of this current season.
Arsenal fans have contracted The Arsenal Supporter Sickness (The A.S.S. ), which reveals itself in a manic, illogical, utterly illogical and counter-productive need to make baseless claims that focus on one player at a time, building a hysterical, unfounded dislike of that player among fans until that player, for whatever reason, is no longer an Arsenal player. They same players who were wowed by Ozil turned on him as a result of the spread of The ASS until he left. These infected individuals continue to attack Ozil, even after he transferred. The same sick fans waxed poetic about how Unai Emery finally found the answer to Arsenal’s supposed defensive woes by bringing in the well-respected Greek defender, Sokratis. Those same fans, with their The A.S.S. fevers run amok, suddenly could not wait for him to be gone.
These same sick individuals have now turned their foggy, deluded, narrow-minded, hysterical unseeing eyes on Hector Bellerin. This has to be the fifteenth or twentieth anti-Bellerin article in the last three days. All posted by supposed Arsenal supporters. The only possible answer is, they have contracted The A.S.S.
In much the same way as Donald Trump’s ill-advised super-spreader events spread COVID-19, certain pundits like Tony Adams and Martin Keown, work hard to make sure The A.S.S. continues to spread and evolve into ever more virulent strains.
The reality here is, Arsenal are not a very good team despite having a lot of really good players. It is impossible to look at the current roster and not see, empirically, that the team is chock-full of terrific players. Aubameyang, Lacazette (another frequent target of those with The A.S.S. ), Xhaka (another favorite target), and Bellerin. These areall terrific players but for some reason, individuals with The A.S.S. cannot seem to grasp that fact.
Targets of those with The A.S.S. have some common characteristics. They have usually been at the club a while. They tend to be non-UK players. They tend to be well-paid.
This could conclude that there is a certain amount of possessiveness – this is my club not theirs, at play. Xenophobia/racism seems to be a factor; the most virulent hate seems to be for those most different, and there is the envy factor – look how much money these people make, they can’t possibly be worth it. Oddly enough, the longest-serving, highest-paid, non-UK players on any given club tend to be the club’s best players; with Arsenal no different. Aubameyang is Arsenal’s best goal scorer, Bellerin is Arsenal’s best fullback (Tierney lovers – he’s played how many games?), Xhaka is Arsenal’s best long-serving mmidfielder, Holding, while a lower-earning, non UK player, has been one of the club’s longest serving defenders, has been Arsenal’s best defender this season, though that reality has been ignored by those suffering from The A.S.S.
The other thing is, individuals who have The A.S.S. frequently ignore real issues. In a rush to blame Granit Xhaka for the draw with Burnley, Bernd Leno pushing the ball to Xhaka, who was already closed down, is completely ignored. The moment that pass was made, disaster was a certainty. There was no where for Xhaka to go with the ball. Leno was too close for a return pass and there were defenders to either side. While it is certainly true Xhaka’s attempt to pass to the wing and clear the danger was not great, it was Leno who created the dire situation. Xhaka’s failing was in not saving the day. And yet, when you read blogs, stories, analyses, and other tales of the event, you would picture Xhaka, alone in space, with plenty of time and how, for reasons known only to the Football Gods, blasted the ball directly to Chris Woods. In truth, a foot either way and the ball goes out to the wing for a clearance. Xhaka was unlucky, but the screw up was Leno’s, not his. But, as previously noted, those suffering from The A.S.S. are immune to logic.
Typically, when a club under performs its roster, that failure would be laid at the manager’s feet, but Mikel Arteta has not yet become the target of those with The A.S.S. He will. Sooner or later, the delusional always get around to blaming anyone and everyone not themselves.
What an arrogant post. There’s so much there it’s not really sensible to try to respond to everything, but the point about xenophobia/racism being anything to do with the vast majority of player criticism is utterly ridiculous and unfounded.
you had me until you’re ridiculous tirade regarding Wenger…now that was a malady that seemingly had no commons sensical cure for the better part of a decade…maybe you should turn your obvious medical acumen towards that confounding virus that permeated our club for so long that we still can’t seem to find an antidote
Noone is suffering from anything mate! Our reasoning can’t be the same, the fact that Mr A doesn’t reason or see things the way Mr B reasons or see things doesn’t mean any of them is suffering from something. Change that notion of yours, it’s totally wrong.
That Burnley goal could be avoided if Zhaka played the ball for a corner kick instead of trying to force a pass with his right foot. So Zhaka deserve to be blamed. He’s a professional FFS
Arsenal Supporter Sickness (The A.S.S. )!
Excellent diagnosis! You are far more eloquent, as I have been trying to say something along these lines for a while.
Bellerin hasn’t improved or regressed this season, it’s been more of the same. Some really good performances, some bad and a lot of average. He’s always been just good enough that it’s not been noticed – we’ve always had bigger problems to focus on.