Arteta sack ‘not an Arsenal move’ as fixture list offers Gunners mitigation
Sack Mikel Arteta? Arsenal fans are having none of that nonsense. There is mitigation aplenty for their poor form.
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Arsenal: The extended mitigation
Ok so international break No.3 and an attempt to look with a balanced view at Arsenal so far – rather than the inevitable over reaction one way or the other. I can’t imagine you’ll get many Man City e-mails either way despite a four-game losing streak, I don’t think there was a single City related mail after they were pumped 4-1 by Sporting.
Starting with the negative for Arsenal:
The build-up and creativity has looked stodgy and the team clearly relies far too much on Odegaard and Saka.
The passing isn’t crisp or fast enough, there is probably too much emphasis on ‘control’.
The baiting of the press when having the ball deep doesn’t seem to work as teams tend to sit off in a mid block, so Arsenal have struggled to progress the ball through the centre of the pitch and end up going more direct and are relying on winning duels.
Arsenal have struggled to get back in to games when we’ve gone behind and have struggled to retain leads in big games, City, Liverpool and Chelsea have all come back to steal a point. Win those 3 as Arsenal should have and they’d be just 2 behind Liverpool despite the poor defeats at Bournemouth and Newcastle.
There still looks like a lack of goals and definitely space for a classic 9 in the squad, and some of the bench players aren’t contributing as much as we need them to. Recruitment in attacking positions wasn’t good enough in the summer, we needed a striker and a winger and had to scrabble around for Sterling on deadline day.
Now the context.
Let’s get red cards and injuries out of the way first. You’d have to be a complete wind-up merchant to say anything other than Arsenal have been unlucky with the 3 red cards, people talk about letter of the law and lack of discipline but when you see how each of those incidents is usually refereed Arsenal do seem the outlier. Arsenal were winning 2 and drawing the other and ended up drawing 2 and losing the other.
Potential 5 points lost in exceptional circumstances. Injuries, again people will scoff and say you haven’t had that many or you should have a squad to cope but it doesn’t take away from the constant niggles and big injury to Odegaard have really disrupted Arsenal. Merino injured as soon as he joined, Timber having to play more than is ideal coming off an ACL, Calafiori picking up disrupting injuries considering he was the big money summer signing to help solve a problem position. I’d happily throw in some big 50/50 decisions not going our way but I think the mailbox is quite tired of that until another stinker comes along.
Now, it really is worth looking at the context of the fixtures, as bad as you may think Arsenal have done so far we’re just 4 points down on the equivalent fixtures from last year.
We’ve also had an incredible set of away fixtures – even Slot acknowledged this – we’ve already gone away to Villa, Spurs, City, Newcastle and Chelsea – we’ve picked up 8 points from those games (so 7 dropped) which is 3 more than we had from those same games last season. Last season Liverpool dropped 9 points from those fixtures and City dropped 8 points from those fixtures (subbing in Arsenal for City as they can’t play themselves). Those 5 away games along with Liverpool and Brighton are the hardest 7 away fixtures in the league. So Arsenal have played 5 of 7, Liverpool 1 of 7 and City 3 of 7.
After Forest Arsenal will have played 8 of 12 against top-half teams. So it means when the fixtures turn Arsenal have little room for error, we have to put a run together but we’ve proven that we can.
International break allows Arsenal to get the injured players back and up to peak fitness. Odegaard is back and adds a huge other dimension to our game.
Arsenal went all last season without losing to a big 6 side in the league, we’ve extended that run by another 4 games this season.
I just don’t see 90 points being the winning target this year. 9 points behind isn’t ideal, of course, but there is so much more football to be played. City are the only team that can realistically stay in the title race with big injuries. Arsenal managed it for the last 2 seasons by keeping key players fit all season. Liverpool have done exactly this previously, the years Liverpool dropped off and finished 4th and 5th they had big injuries. Before that they had that devastating front 3 of Mane, Firminho, Salah virtually ever present for 3 straight years. Injuries really do matter for the chasing pack.
Many games so far are on fine margins, yes that is football, and yes to some extend Arteta’s style particularly in big games is to have them decided on fine margins, but very little has fallen our way.
Hoping Arteta can find a way to pull Saka, Rice and Odegaard from international duty as other managers consistently do, have a nice 2 week rest, get that Dubai trip booked in that recharged the batteries last season and go on a winning run.
If you live your life always considering the negative connotations of everything then it must be exhausting, always looking for the ‘hate watch’, anything to bring others down to elevate your own worth – just enjoy it.
Rich, AFC (Palmer ghosting in another big game?)
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No real Arsenal fan wants Mikel Arteta out
Hmmm, not sure Johnny Nic got the memo about F365’s stance on clickbait-y, straw man-y articles – his Arteta piece is a classic of the genre though.
I’ve not heard a single Arsenal fan voice this opinion at all, so thanks for the concern JN but we’re all good buddy! Bump in the road, or a sticky patch – call it whatever you want, but no need to soil your bed just yet.
Alex
…As the final whistle went, I could barely stomach the narratives that were going to be spun. What’s the old saying? Patience is a virtue?
Evidently from the toys being thrown out of the pram and how everyone is saying the season is over, the toys have been thrown. That we need to be rid of Arteta and that he has failed. How is a record points total failed? How is most goals scored in a season failed? How is pushing a financial bully and cheat to the last game of the season failed? This is exactly the kind of stupid thinking that causes clubs to be in endless repeated cycles of ‘we’re back / it’s over’. We should get rid of Arteta when he’s so fricking close to winning?
I’m not giving up, and I’m certainly not so short term that I think some poor run of form is enough to get rid of him. I’ll tell you now, it would be the most stupid, short term thinking imaginable. Imagine building a squad and mentality in the club, to chuck it all away because of some poor form.
A Spurs move. A Chelsea move. Not an Arsenal move.
There’s a long way to go till the end of the season, we’ve got our talismanic midfielder back, I have faith that other teams will dip in form. Come the Winter transfer window, some cover for Odegaard and maybe someone up top, and I think every chance for silverware come end of the season.
John Matrix AFC
Man Utd should sign Gyokeres
That Man United has not had a clinical finisher for some seasons is not in question. Both Hojlund and Zirkzee have been trying very hard but they have not reached the desired level. Having a clinical finisher or effective striker is a sine qua non for winning titles. A little bit of history will provide further insights into this assertion.
During the period we won 20 EPL Titles, we had elite strikers every season and, as a result, we continuously scored more goals than we conceded. The point must be made that the likes of Cole, Yorke, Solskjaer, Van Nisterooy, Tevez, Rooney, Berbatov, Van Persie and others led United to trophies during the glory seasons.
In the decade following the departure of Sir Alex, each season has seen United mulling the idea of signing one striker or the other but we have still not signed a clinical finisher. With the arrival of Amorim, an obvious opportunity has arisen to sign a modern day clinical finisher, Gyokeres, and I am writing to urge United to give serious consideration to signing him instead of Nkumku and others. Needless to say that Gyokeres is not overpriced.
Professor (Dr) David Achanfuo Yeboah
Rugby is full of cheats
I am what might be considered old.
I do not like VAR and believe it makes the game an actively less enjoyable experience, especially for the match going fan.
I also love cricket and used to watch a lot of rugby.
There is a big difference between these three sports and how VAR has been introduced. The reason for me why VAR ruins football is it takes what is a flowing game a breaks this apart. Now many teams will try to break to flow of a game to their advantage and there is nothing wrong with that, but VAR takes this to another level.
The reason why rugby and cricket are different is that they are sports where the flow of the game is broken more often and consistently than in football. They are stop start sports and therefore time can be taken to get decisions right (although they do still far too often get decisions wrong). In football there is too much pressure to make the decision quickly and therefore you either get a wrong decision or a decisions which is right but takes too long.
The major reason why I stopped watching rugby is the amount of blatant cheating in the game. I really hate it when the egg chasers complain about footballers cheating and diving when rugby is game won and lost by how well a team cheats. Hands in the ruck, going in off your feet, never a straight put in, off sides, collapsing a scrum all these things happen multiple times in a game and they rarely get punished. I came to the conclusion that every break down was an opportunity to cheat and it started to bore me.
I am really not sure why I accept cheating in football in a way that I don’t in rugby. Probably because I have more invested in football. It does however grind my gears when people hold up rugby as an example for football to follow as to my eyes the problems in rugby are worse especially with the referees. People just seem to accept it as part of the game more readily.
Simon, Woking
Man City FFP corner
Allan suggests that stripping titles and potentially kicking City out of the league if (and it remains an if) City are found guilty of a meaningful number of the 115 charges.
Some thoughts:
– What about the fans and players of all the other teams in the league? The fans of several other clubs who never got to celebrate the trophy wins they probably would have had, the teams that probably wouldn’t have been relegated if City were still crap? It’s not to say it’d be a pity for City’s fans and players but a team that is found guilty of massive scale cheating should be meaningfully punished for it – that’s the fair thing to do for all the fans and players of clubs that don’t cheat.
– while the long-time fans like Allan have a pre-existing emotional attachment to the team that one can’t just switch off, the charges and potential guilty verdict can’t really be a surprise to the players. They knew who they were signing for (except for Robinho, famously) and would have been playing for a team that was financially doped and had an unfair advantage. They’d deserve to have their medals stripped.
– even if people think my point above is harsh, it is still fair. A team that wins having been caught cheating shouldn’t be allowed to keep their titles. Let’s be clear, City are not being accused of procedural errors, they are being accused of gaming the rules of the competition they had agreed to to gain an unfair competitive advantage.
I am thinking about Team GB’s sprinters being stripped of their relay silver medal for Tokyo 2020. The other three team members must feel hard done by, but Ujah had doped and the team didn’t deserve it. Stripping the titles was the fair thing for the rest of the field and the only solution that protects the integrity of the competition. As an aside, it’s quite right that the feelings of lifelong Team GB fans was not a factor in the decision…
Another example – Lance Armstrong cheated and didn’t deserve to be known as a seven-time Tour de France champion, so it’s right that the record says that he isn’t.
Again, it remains to be seen that City will actually be found guilty of anything – and there are a massive range of possible outcomes. It may be that they are completely vindicated. It may be that they breached a handful of the minor, more techincal, rules and we’re in slap on the wrist territory. If they get caught on a large number of the more serious charges, I do expect that the punishment would have to be sufficiently major to fit the “crime”.
The PL “product” will be more majorly damaged if it is seen as a dodgy competition where you can’t trust that teams aren’t cheating than it would be if they kicked out Man City and lose a “big six” member – frankly, if City were kicked out the pyramid and never played again (which I’m not advocating for nor do I think will happen) I don’t think it would make much of a difference to the league and its profile at all – other teams will just gobble up those overseas fans without missing a beat.
Andy (MUFC)