We cannot keep ignoring the problems and get results. by Konstantin Mitov
Hello lovely Arsenal people. It’s difficult to take how we approached our last 2 games. Actually we did it in exactly the same way we did most of the season. We missed our chances to take the lead, then fell behind, but our comeback didn’t happen.
What should we take away? Well our defence is not good enough. It hasn’t been the whole season. It was left shambolic by Wenger and the reason I wanted a manager like Simeone was to exactly fix this. Last season we scored goals as well. I see our defenders leaving acres of space for enemy players. This is not just yesterday, we just don’t close players down and this hasn’t changed a bit I must say.
I don’t buy the injury excuse. We are playing Xhaka as a CB. In every game we’ve done that so far from the start, we’ve not won. What does that tell you? Why are we disrupting our best midfield pair to put Xhaka as a CB which clearly hasn’t worked? For me Unai Emery has to take the blame for the two defeats.
Don’t we have an under 23 squad? Isn’t there a young CB we can stick in? Can it be worse than what it is really? And where is Ozil? He wasn’t selected for this game. 350k a week for not being good enough to make the match squad. Not even the bench? The club took a massive gamble on Ozil. Now we must get rid of him. His flashy play cost us the game at Southampton and it’s clear the manager doesn’t trust him.
The biggest issue for me is we leave one of our best strikers on the bench, because we fail to dominate games and we don’t have options on the bench. But when we are leaving a 350k player on the bench and you don’t win, the boss will have to answer questions just like Mourinho with Pogba and eventually there is a problem.
We need to invest in January. The manager wants a winger and there isn’t one. I’m sorry but Iwobi is not good enough for this football club. He had the right energy and intent, but the end product is always a heavy touch or just hitting the ball at the opponent player and hoping to get something.
Mikhi missed a sitter, and I must say, he’s also on a huge wage. We cannot afford to miss those chances and we do it often. They had 3 chances and scored 2 goals. The subs were poor today too. Emery is still under the ‘he’s just arrived at the club’ and so on, but he must either address the real problems or next season he’ll hardly get the luxury that Wenger got, because he won the Europa League with Sevilla 3 times in the past.
The head coach kept talking about “building our way”. What exactly is our way so far? I don’t mind ugly performances that get results, but we’ve been riding a lot of luck which has been largely neglected, because we’ve won a few games. We must address the defence and put emphasis on clean sheets and start putting focus on this as well, otherwise we’ll continue to struggle.
Liverpool bought van Dijk in January and look what happened to their defence. We must invest, and we need at least 2 players in my opinion. There is a lack of depth in the side. Welbeck is out for the season and he’ll likely not be offered a new contract. Ramsey will be left out. Ozil for me is leaving or otherwise it’s a waste of money. The board better invest in the beliefs of Emery, because for me it looks like this is the limit of what he can do with what he’s got right now.
Konstantin