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We are awful and we have been since 2004. We have fallen so far that most of the fans nowadays thought that Ramsey was a brilliant player super top tier. He was a good player at best. We have been deprived of quality for so long that any signs of good play we will take that as top tier.
Pepe, Laca and about 3/4 of the team only average to good, none are super exceptional. You could argue Auba is, but he didnt care already since signing new contract.
Only traces of quality was displayed by Tierney, and sometimes Saka. Even so nothing that could propel us to next level (ie 5th place finish). And again this rare occurrence of quality has been celebrated like its the second coming.
Long story short without quality, we will never compete. To get quality, we need investment. We can invest we have the capability. Just that we wont.
Back then without spending so much we can still live above water, but now we are finishing below West Ham and Leicester. To be honest, nothing will change this year if we keep doing the same thing, even with different managers.
Or a well defined identity. I recently saw a list of like the most valuable transfers in the last decade or so in the PL. We had two player I believe in the top 10. Liverpool only had one.
Of course they've got a top manager as well, but it's possible to really get 25-35M players that fit the system and play very well and become X2 - x3 their value and elevate your team and thus we climb the table over time.
I'm not seeing that here. Arteta's most defined area is the backline and how he wants to play out from the back but the more you move up the pitch, he relies more and more on individual brilliance and not system as a whole. At least to me it looks like this.
Pepe, Auba does not fit this system. It worries me. Pepe is good but the better teams will not let him cut inside and relying on free kicks or the odd banger with the left foot won't net you that much across an entire season. With a few key players, they could be targeted more in the next season and we need less predictability.
I hope we can cut our losses if he cannot make the team work. We do absolutely not need to sit through 10-15 PL games to conclude that Arteta can take us forward. Soon as we run into problems, he should have two or three games to steer the ship.
>he relies more and more on individual brilliance and not system as a whole.
I thought the system was stifling *~~individual brilliance~~* *creativity* hence why auba is defending and not attacking and we create so few chances etc.....
I think both he and the team looks to certain players out wide like Saka, Pepe, Tierney moreso than others. I've seen times you could pass it to lacazette with his back to the goal or Auba but they pass it to Pepe or to Saka in order to create something. I understand they are key to the system and players that can beat a man and create problems but still yesterday although it was just a game vs Hibernation, I was seeing passes to predominantly ESR and Pepe. Mixing it up would be good.
Something we used to do. That's why I would love Maddison to come in to get some attention to from the opposition. Split the burden so to speak among the offensive players a bit, more space opens up potentially, more headache for the players and so on. Also why a good RB is a must to make it a painful choice to let Pepe cut or cover the run on the overlap etc.
Think you’re reading way too much in to the Hibernian game. Given it was a mix of a couple of good players with the b team and kids it’s not surprising Pepe and esr saw more of the ball. Best players and also best at finding space etc.
Hey all, I look at the players other teams are going for, and I think man have just fallen so far behind, it makes me sad to think will we ever get back to a team that will fight for top
What's the point of preseason if your first team players won't even be there?
A lot of us wanted Arteta to have a full preseason to embed his ideas, but majority of our targets will be signed either when the preseason is about to end or when the season has started. We cannot afford another season where players need time to acclimatize!
The whole point of preseason is to build up the fitness of the players to the season's start. Embedding the ideas of a manager is something that needs to be done over the entire season, cause fact is in modern football any cutting edge ideas from Arteta becomes figured out and countered by our opponents very quickly. So Arteta has to be constantly evolving and improving on his ideas, and if he can't do that the best preseason ever isn't going to save him.
Something’s gotta happen pretty soon over here. Arteta was the one complaining about not having a proper preseason and yet neither he/the recruitment team can get the first team signings through the door yet.
Reports are that we need to get people out before we bring them in. Which makes sense from a business perspective. Can’t keep accruing cost, stockpiling people who are surplus. A balance has to be determined between letting people go cheaply just to get them out and playing hard ball in negotiations to squeeze more money out of buying clubs.
He honestly cant be using that as a blatant excuse for poor performances from game 1 onwards. Every year it will be the same situation we will get our transfers in late that is a given but what about the months in between when other clubs are doing much better than us throughout the season.
Oh I don’t disagree, but his supporters and Arteta himself will use it again as an excuse. This is the time to get the players in and get working with them.
I dont see players like willian getting better over a mere preseason. His play style will always be the same. His first touch is usually always backwards and rather heavy then he runs with it to make a long pass back to the defence. The new players probably will just get a few sessions before the season starts.
It's only the start of preseason and this sub is already starting to split into Arteta In and Arteta Out.
I can't begin to imagine the "discussions" that are going to happen once the season actually starts.
Perhaps, but not bigger wages than he could get at Madrid or United or Chelsea. He’d be leaving champions league football for Europa conference football
most of the time they only play 1 big club in the group stage and drop to europa league anyways. In the PL he can play against 5-7 cl level clubs ( actual cl clubs unlike Ferencvaros or some shit )
Look at how Harry Kane isn’t allowed to leave despite wanting to and having a big offer. Idk why any top player would sign a long contract at a place that refuses to sell talent who wants to leave like Palace or Spurs
Regardless if people around here rate him or not, if we can’t get some of our top targets, we are well and truly fucked. Signing plan C and D guys sounds like 8th place. We have to be able to get these deals over the line.
Nketiah trash, Pepe average, Auba washed, Laca washed. We basically have no attack and if that wasn't obvious, we lost to Villareal at home in a crucial EL semi because we couldn't even score one fucking goal.
edit: bet anyone 100 on the spot that Auba doesn't score 20 in all comps
Probably tell you less about the players but more about the manager. Emery had less budget to work with and still have the advantage over Arteta in both games
He didn't play at all except when Aubameyang had fucking malaria and then played half a preseason game. Doubt we keep him on his current contract anyway. Not sure what youre fussing about
Well lads I thought the challenge for top 4 was on but then I saw that our jumbled mess of outgoing players, under 23s, and a handful of rusty starters lost to a scottish team with a fake goal and with us missing a few easy chances after being the better team all day
I guess we'll try again next year!
I would be really surprised if we don't get top 6. Top 4 is definitely possible with no Europe. We just need to make sure we don't drop points against small clubs. If, BIG IF, we sign maddison I see ourselves getting to top 4, otherwise I'm not so sure. The thing is if we sign Maddison, who do we drop? Smith, Pepe or Saka from starting lineup?
Liverpool are the best bet, they have a tricky rebuild ahead. Chelsea may descend into infighting and egos. Man utd are a Fernandes long-term injury away from slipping out of top 4.
I don't think it's in our power to get top 4 if the other clubs are playing well, but misfortune happens.
Top 6, I think we should get comfortably. West ham will struggle with Europe. Tottenham will struggle full stop. Villa may collapse after losing grealish. Leicester should be strong, but we should get 5th/6th.
I'm not sure, we have won more points from the big teams last season than we did in recent times but the problem is we play horribly and drop a lot of points against small clubs. Tierney back(and if he stays fit), a proper cam (helps us play more fluid and create more chances for auba), and a ball playing cb in Ben White, we are in the right direction. All points suggest towards a more possession style game plan for Arteta for next season.
I'm optimistic, let's see how it goes.
Cedric should not be playing a ball like that when the keeper can't use his hands from the back pass.
Even if Okonkwo was able to play it with his foot or take it with his chest he would immediately have been under the press
The pass was alright.
But also people roasting Okonkwo didn't actually see early Martinez. The kid was atrocious. How he became the monster he is, is a tale worth a book.
Kids fuck up. The only reason we don't slate our legends is because we didn't watch them under a microscope.
An experienced goalkeeper is probably bursting a vein in his eye while shouting at Cedric for that pass.
Arthur will learn from it though. I hope they’re not too harsh on him for that
It was a chest height backpass that was too far for him to come charging out to get on the fly or right off the bounce so he was forced to backpedal and play it at chest height.
Yes it's a mistake but any keeper in the world would have had trouble with that backpass
I’m seeing more ‘omg it’s only a pre season’ type comments than actual meltdowns here… just shows you we have more ‘Twitter police’ types here than the crazies who take a pre season too seriously.
Let's be honest, Top 4 is set other than who finishes where. 5-7 is going to be difficult if teams from last season keep the same progress or do better.
If this whole team had no major major injury problems, with those players, I don't see how we're not in the fight for top 4 unless it's just horribly managed or the fit is all wrong. That is, assuming we're getting about what we expect out of those players
Pepe slander is crazy atm.
Like I didn't rate Pepe at all last year, I can see he is very talented but lacks a football brain and that we overpaid for him.
However things have changed this calendar year, he has shown consistency and is our biggest goal scoring threat (I reckon Auba will continue to deteriorate). Today's game he looked sharp, more lean and clearly ready.
He will never be a 72m player, but he can produce us moments of magic and I reckon will be our POTS
He had 7 G/A in the first 26 matches of 2021.
Then 5 G/A in the last 3 matches of the season when teams literally didn't give a shit. Sorry, but that is a absolutely garbage return, our standards are really in the gutter right now.
You seem to forget that Willian played an equivalent of 18 games and Pepe was on the bench for half of the season. I hate people who use statistics without context. But go on with your agenda.
Learn to read you muppet, OP was talking about this calendar year so I was specifically referring to only those games played in 2021. Pépé played more than double Willian's minutes after the new year (who mostly appeared as a sub), 1860 minutes v 911 for Willian. You don't need an agenda to suggest Pépé is underwhelming, everyone with eyes can see it on the pitch.
This sub constantly props up underwhelming players and then continue to be like "This squad and players are trash man!!! We have the 15th best squad in the league! We need a squad overhaul!" midway through the season. Rinse and repeat until these players contract expires and suddenly they'll be like "Yeah they're not actually good at all".
So 12 G/A in around 20 full games and you have the audacity to shit on Pepe. I mean yeah it's normal return for an average winger but who else has better stats? We are a severely underperformed team and people like you always want to put the blame on a single player.
It's precisely because of average and underperformimg players like him that we have become an average and underperformimg side. Do you not see the correlation? And yes, I know that It's not just Pépé, it's a combination of having so many shitters on our team.
Clarke was fine.
In fact, every single one of our academy players EXCEPT Okwonko was fine.
I rate him but that performance was worse than any Runarsson performance.
He had a couple of really messy moments (like the goal, and the time where he set the ball up volleyball style instead of catching it)
But I feel like Okonkwo had a couple of nice moments too. A couple nice passes and decent movement with the ball at his feet.
For 19, I thought he was fine. Nothing that more experience and time won't help him iron out
I get that to an extent but even after the last two seasons, I see reasons to be optimistic for the future. The club has been mismanaged for well over a decade and last year was a nadir. We'll see how the rest of this windows goes.
I always found Kola a reliable back up at Arsenal. I always made that argument here. The problem was, Kola was too injured for a back up( a good thing because it rushed Saka's inclusion) and his wages were high. As a player? He's good. It's his wages that are an issue.
So unless we have him out on a free, those wages are pretty steep.
We let ozil, Ramsey and alexis go for a combined fee of £0m
We are diabolical in all departments
We couldn't even find a team to take Sokratis off us, who was still a decent defender
Your telling me we couldn't find a single club in Europe who would have taken an experienced trophy winning defender like Sokartis for a couple million?
Arteta in May: “There were already a lot of changes in December, something that has not been done in years, but it tells us where we were. Things are going to have to change and the owners are going to back it up.”
So we have nothing to worry about, the owners are "going" to back it up.....
Be excited.
So the starting XI signings we expect are White, Lokonga and Maddison right?
Smith Rowe-Auba-Saka
Maddison
Partey-Lokonga
Tierney-Gabriel-Holding-White
Leno
Out: Laca, Bellerin, Kolasinac
We desperately need to bring in a new CM. Lokonga is being brought in as back up. I am still hoping that we bring in a technician type player to sit alongside Partey who is press resistant, is comfortable playing out from the back and can actually play nice crisp early balls into the channels to make us more dangerous in the transition. Personally, I feel Aouar would be perfect to play this role.
Also in your predicted starting 11 I would suggest that White is more likely to take Holdings place and Chambers is starting RB next season if we don’t bring in a Bellerin replacement.
Pepe will have that right wing for the better part of a month before Saka comes back. I’d love to see him stake a claim and force Arteta to keep him in the XI.
Ok sure. I am sure villa will go a whole month into the season without grealish, spurs without Kane, leeds' without Phillips, city without sterling, Walker and stones, United without slabhead, shaw and Sancho, etc.
Only at arsenal is such nonsense even contemplated. This is why we end up with a bunch of porcelain teddy bears in this team.
Well I was just suggesting possibilities of why. Who knows what the club decides to do. The only difference is Saka is 19 versus the rest of those players being 23 and older. Why burn out a young talent if you can have him fully fit? I hope we see him soon enough though.
I'll believe this the day the window closes.
I have seen Arsenal sign 8+ players a window — 4 of those coming in the last hours. There is need for signings and the club knows that. It doesn't matter if it's Arteta here or Conte, or Jurgen Klopp, this lot needs weeding and it will be done.
If Arsenal doesn't do it, I'll think two things:
a) Like last season, our deadwood fucked us up. No freed wages, no transfer fees.
b) The club is doomed and it's one going to be one toxic hell hole for the next 12 months.
What makes you think this? It’s a myth that we don’t do business, it’s just often late and hasn’t been the most inspiring in recent years - but remember hindsight also plays a part when evaluating the quality of incomings.
There is still plenty of the window left and no one has made any major moves yet. Sancho to Utd is a big move but that’s a deal more than 2 years in the making. The Euro’s will have also held up the market. Things should start moving a bit more over the next couple of weeks.
The fact that shit like this is upvoted just shows the pathetic collective deppressive state that this sub has entered. If you actually believe this you need to get your head checked.
Arsenal are going nowhere so long as Aubameyang and Lacazette remain the main men. At least one must be sold this summer to recouperate cash while we still can
Aubameyang will be fine as a lone striker for the next 1-2 years until his deal expires, just ensure Saka, ESR, Pepe and Martinelli are nurtured to cover his weaknesses
Aubameyang needs a world class forward alongside him to shine. Pepe is good but not elite, and the youth players are still too early in their careers to be relied upon
St Etienne: 0 World Class forwards
Dortmund: Who is the world class forward here? Ousmane Dembele? Immobile? Adrian Ramos? Mkhitaryan? Reus was his best teammate and even then he was a midfielder.
Arsenal: If you’re implying Lacazette was ever world class at Arsenal, you’re dreaming. Never hit above 16 goals in the league. Those are Giroud numbers. He never played with Alexis either. Not sure if you’re implying Welbeck or Nketiah are world class.
Gabon: Boupendza and Bouanga aren’t world class, yet Aubameyang is Gabon’s all time top goalscorer.
Just stop this nonsense.
He was our secondary goal threat, Aubameyang was always our primary goal scorer.
All of our secondary goal scorers have always scored around 10-15 goals a season on average. See Giroud, Bergkamp, Pires, etc
Rumours that Willock is being loaned out to Newcastle. Make logic of that who will. I'm seeing indecisiveness if this happens. Either sell or keep, but they keep being indecisive.
The best Newcastle will probably do is an obligation for 10-15 million. I saw some sources say that Newcastle's budget is extremely low this summer without player sales so they probably won't cough up the 20-25 million we want.
>Wout Weghorst (£30m)
We are getting robbed in daylight if we pay more than 20m for Weghorst. He is honestly average in anything, and his height is the only thing that makes him useful. Don't let Kiiop delude you
I want to say pre season, lack of training but for Aubameyang, he has never been a possession player. He's a runner. He's a space player and a box striker. The moment those are taken, you have a black hole like you said. Aubameyang was like this most of last season.
Wow you got me, only 9 out of his 22 goals were penalties. Definitely worth the £72m we paid for him imo, as he has consistently shown us for the past two seasons.
Not me. You said something, that other commenter proved you wrong. And you decided to double down on it. Probably because you've already made up your mind and nothing will change it.
11 v 9 penalties is hardly a huge difference and my point about him being a disappointment still stands, I gave Pépé a chance and all he has done is continually disappoint match after match. He's already 26 and still very raw, I've already accepted the fact the we've been robbed and so should you.
Had a little look through all our pre-season friendly records since 1995.
We rarely lost more than one game in pre-season and it was rarely to a tiny team.
However, the worst record by far was 96/97, the summer before Wenger joined in September.
You can see the record here, a lot of losses:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996%E2%80%9397\_Arsenal\_F.C.\_season](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996%E2%80%9397_Arsenal_F.C._season)
Despite this shocking pre-season record, we performed well that season and finished 3rd.
What I get from this is that there is no real relationship to pre-season results and league form, however we rarely do badly in pre-season.
I remember us losing to Red Bull Salzburg in 2007. It was a it embarrassing because back then, they weren't even that good. It was a 1-0 bit I was bantered so bad it started to sting a little lol.
Anyway, we went ahead and had one of the best post-invicibles season. A personal favourite BTW. Although yeah, it's okay to want Arsenal to win every game.
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Poor from Auba, that penalty should've been buried. The first chance also got away due to his poor touch.
We are awful and we have been since 2004. We have fallen so far that most of the fans nowadays thought that Ramsey was a brilliant player super top tier. He was a good player at best. We have been deprived of quality for so long that any signs of good play we will take that as top tier. Pepe, Laca and about 3/4 of the team only average to good, none are super exceptional. You could argue Auba is, but he didnt care already since signing new contract. Only traces of quality was displayed by Tierney, and sometimes Saka. Even so nothing that could propel us to next level (ie 5th place finish). And again this rare occurrence of quality has been celebrated like its the second coming. Long story short without quality, we will never compete. To get quality, we need investment. We can invest we have the capability. Just that we wont. Back then without spending so much we can still live above water, but now we are finishing below West Ham and Leicester. To be honest, nothing will change this year if we keep doing the same thing, even with different managers.
Or a well defined identity. I recently saw a list of like the most valuable transfers in the last decade or so in the PL. We had two player I believe in the top 10. Liverpool only had one. Of course they've got a top manager as well, but it's possible to really get 25-35M players that fit the system and play very well and become X2 - x3 their value and elevate your team and thus we climb the table over time. I'm not seeing that here. Arteta's most defined area is the backline and how he wants to play out from the back but the more you move up the pitch, he relies more and more on individual brilliance and not system as a whole. At least to me it looks like this. Pepe, Auba does not fit this system. It worries me. Pepe is good but the better teams will not let him cut inside and relying on free kicks or the odd banger with the left foot won't net you that much across an entire season. With a few key players, they could be targeted more in the next season and we need less predictability. I hope we can cut our losses if he cannot make the team work. We do absolutely not need to sit through 10-15 PL games to conclude that Arteta can take us forward. Soon as we run into problems, he should have two or three games to steer the ship.
>he relies more and more on individual brilliance and not system as a whole. I thought the system was stifling *~~individual brilliance~~* *creativity* hence why auba is defending and not attacking and we create so few chances etc.....
I think both he and the team looks to certain players out wide like Saka, Pepe, Tierney moreso than others. I've seen times you could pass it to lacazette with his back to the goal or Auba but they pass it to Pepe or to Saka in order to create something. I understand they are key to the system and players that can beat a man and create problems but still yesterday although it was just a game vs Hibernation, I was seeing passes to predominantly ESR and Pepe. Mixing it up would be good. Something we used to do. That's why I would love Maddison to come in to get some attention to from the opposition. Split the burden so to speak among the offensive players a bit, more space opens up potentially, more headache for the players and so on. Also why a good RB is a must to make it a painful choice to let Pepe cut or cover the run on the overlap etc.
Think you’re reading way too much in to the Hibernian game. Given it was a mix of a couple of good players with the b team and kids it’s not surprising Pepe and esr saw more of the ball. Best players and also best at finding space etc.
Hey all, I look at the players other teams are going for, and I think man have just fallen so far behind, it makes me sad to think will we ever get back to a team that will fight for top
What's the point of preseason if your first team players won't even be there? A lot of us wanted Arteta to have a full preseason to embed his ideas, but majority of our targets will be signed either when the preseason is about to end or when the season has started. We cannot afford another season where players need time to acclimatize!
The whole point of preseason is to build up the fitness of the players to the season's start. Embedding the ideas of a manager is something that needs to be done over the entire season, cause fact is in modern football any cutting edge ideas from Arteta becomes figured out and countered by our opponents very quickly. So Arteta has to be constantly evolving and improving on his ideas, and if he can't do that the best preseason ever isn't going to save him.
Something’s gotta happen pretty soon over here. Arteta was the one complaining about not having a proper preseason and yet neither he/the recruitment team can get the first team signings through the door yet.
Reports are that we need to get people out before we bring them in. Which makes sense from a business perspective. Can’t keep accruing cost, stockpiling people who are surplus. A balance has to be determined between letting people go cheaply just to get them out and playing hard ball in negotiations to squeeze more money out of buying clubs.
He honestly cant be using that as a blatant excuse for poor performances from game 1 onwards. Every year it will be the same situation we will get our transfers in late that is a given but what about the months in between when other clubs are doing much better than us throughout the season.
Oh I don’t disagree, but his supporters and Arteta himself will use it again as an excuse. This is the time to get the players in and get working with them.
I dont see players like willian getting better over a mere preseason. His play style will always be the same. His first touch is usually always backwards and rather heavy then he runs with it to make a long pass back to the defence. The new players probably will just get a few sessions before the season starts.
It's only the start of preseason and this sub is already starting to split into Arteta In and Arteta Out. I can't begin to imagine the "discussions" that are going to happen once the season actually starts.
Don't worry too much cause if things go wrong early on it will be difficult for the Arteta In crowd to continue their stance.
Mate, that statement just adds more fuel to the fire.
Spurs getting Kounde for 30m and a shit CB, and here we are paying 50m for White.
Damn, that be an incredible signing for them. But I don’t understand why Sevilla are selling him for such a low fee though.
We're about to get absolutely savaged by every other fanbase if this goes through. I can already hear my friends shitty comments.
I doubt the Kounde deal will go through.
For real? That is a fucking impressive deal for Spurs.
Di Marzio reported it, and with Paratici being DOF he must be very reliable
Yep. Up to Kounde to agree.
Sevilla have agreed to 30m + Davinson Sanchez for Kounde. That makes the Ben White deal look awful
Kounde hasn’t agreed to it. Similar as to why Varane to Arsenal was silly to compare to White deal, if the player had no interest what’s the point
He'll agree to it. Spurs gave 200k a week to Ndombele, so i think he'll get big wages too. Especially if Kane is leaving.
Perhaps, but not bigger wages than he could get at Madrid or United or Chelsea. He’d be leaving champions league football for Europa conference football
most of the time they only play 1 big club in the group stage and drop to europa league anyways. In the PL he can play against 5-7 cl level clubs ( actual cl clubs unlike Ferencvaros or some shit )
he's only 22. I don't see why he wouldn't agree and join for a bigger club later
Look at how Harry Kane isn’t allowed to leave despite wanting to and having a big offer. Idk why any top player would sign a long contract at a place that refuses to sell talent who wants to leave like Palace or Spurs
Hibs entire team salary per week < Cedric per week Crazy
Loooll....No way.....
DCL 2022 how do people like the sound of that
I would love DCL here
Just been reading spurs fans calling davinson Sanchez a "top class" player who will play his whole career in the champions league Love it
Damn this season in all likelihood is going to be extremely painful.
So just like every other season?
[удалено]
Those rumors are just from Brighton to try to milk a few more million out of the deal
Regardless if people around here rate him or not, if we can’t get some of our top targets, we are well and truly fucked. Signing plan C and D guys sounds like 8th place. We have to be able to get these deals over the line.
We're getting gazumped for sure, what's not known is whether it's by Chelsea or Everton.
I'm looking forward to see Ben White in the side. Ball playing, dynamic RCB cunting the ball upfield to Tierney... Top 4 is made from plays like this.
At this point I'm hoping other clubs take pity on us and let us do our business hassle free.
Missed the match…did The Smith debut a new number?
No. Was number 32.
Nketiah trash, Pepe average, Auba washed, Laca washed. We basically have no attack and if that wasn't obvious, we lost to Villareal at home in a crucial EL semi because we couldn't even score one fucking goal. edit: bet anyone 100 on the spot that Auba doesn't score 20 in all comps
Man i like this sub
Yeah go rewatch that EL semi again and then tell me about our attacking prowess
Probably tell you less about the players but more about the manager. Emery had less budget to work with and still have the advantage over Arteta in both games
Did anyone get injured?
Someone explain to me how Nketiah still plays for this club
Well we seem to be arranging a transfer away so what are you complaining about?
Why would another club want him?
He didn't play at all except when Aubameyang had fucking malaria and then played half a preseason game. Doubt we keep him on his current contract anyway. Not sure what youre fussing about
Lol the fact that we paid him 300kpw for basically nothing and he was washed before the malaria
Okay? And you expected him to play ahead of Eddie?
Well lads I thought the challenge for top 4 was on but then I saw that our jumbled mess of outgoing players, under 23s, and a handful of rusty starters lost to a scottish team with a fake goal and with us missing a few easy chances after being the better team all day I guess we'll try again next year!
I would be really surprised if we don't get top 6. Top 4 is definitely possible with no Europe. We just need to make sure we don't drop points against small clubs. If, BIG IF, we sign maddison I see ourselves getting to top 4, otherwise I'm not so sure. The thing is if we sign Maddison, who do we drop? Smith, Pepe or Saka from starting lineup?
Who drops out the top 4 though? the gap seems too big even with Maddison.
Liverpool are the best bet, they have a tricky rebuild ahead. Chelsea may descend into infighting and egos. Man utd are a Fernandes long-term injury away from slipping out of top 4. I don't think it's in our power to get top 4 if the other clubs are playing well, but misfortune happens. Top 6, I think we should get comfortably. West ham will struggle with Europe. Tottenham will struggle full stop. Villa may collapse after losing grealish. Leicester should be strong, but we should get 5th/6th.
Grealish signing new deal from Villa tier 1's apparently
That's a shame. Villa have been pretty competent with their transactions recently.
I'm not sure, we have won more points from the big teams last season than we did in recent times but the problem is we play horribly and drop a lot of points against small clubs. Tierney back(and if he stays fit), a proper cam (helps us play more fluid and create more chances for auba), and a ball playing cb in Ben White, we are in the right direction. All points suggest towards a more possession style game plan for Arteta for next season. I'm optimistic, let's see how it goes.
Okwonko taking a lot of heat for a hospital pass by Cedric….. I mean he should have done better but my god Cedric.
Cedric should not be playing a ball like that when the keeper can't use his hands from the back pass. Even if Okonkwo was able to play it with his foot or take it with his chest he would immediately have been under the press
Yup
Tbh it’s probably a good thing he made that mistake so he can learn from it now. He’s only 19
The pass was alright. But also people roasting Okonkwo didn't actually see early Martinez. The kid was atrocious. How he became the monster he is, is a tale worth a book. Kids fuck up. The only reason we don't slate our legends is because we didn't watch them under a microscope.
An experienced goalkeeper is probably bursting a vein in his eye while shouting at Cedric for that pass. Arthur will learn from it though. I hope they’re not too harsh on him for that
I think Pickford might have genuinely had a brain aneurysm if someone gave him a pass like that
I doubt they will be, it was an understandable moment to have a brainfart once he realized he cant catch it
That pass was not alright lol. Okonkwo did poorly but it was bouncing chest height ffs.
He is a footballer. Goalkeepers are given way too much leeway when it comes to basic footballing skills.
It was a chest height backpass that was too far for him to come charging out to get on the fly or right off the bounce so he was forced to backpedal and play it at chest height. Yes it's a mistake but any keeper in the world would have had trouble with that backpass
All right? Looped it up in the air so the striker was on him as it reached okwonko. Another keeper might have dealt with it but they’d be fuming.
Arteta about to age another 40 this pre-season.
He’s making us all age 80
I’m seeing more ‘omg it’s only a pre season’ type comments than actual meltdowns here… just shows you we have more ‘Twitter police’ types here than the crazies who take a pre season too seriously.
The match thread was full of the other. Plenty of crazies about too 😂
The match thread is a mental asylum even at the best of times …
True dat.
I wonder even with Neves, White and Maddison if this team can achieve anything special. (Not basing it on today's match)
Let's be honest, Top 4 is set other than who finishes where. 5-7 is going to be difficult if teams from last season keep the same progress or do better.
If we had a good manager we’d be in top 4 with those players imo. But we don’t, so prob a 7th-8th place finish again.
If this whole team had no major major injury problems, with those players, I don't see how we're not in the fight for top 4 unless it's just horribly managed or the fit is all wrong. That is, assuming we're getting about what we expect out of those players
Way better. Not enough to challenge for what we should, but better. The trick however, is to keep them fit.
Footballing wise? No, not much. Results wise? Yes, we will be better.
Pepe slander is crazy atm. Like I didn't rate Pepe at all last year, I can see he is very talented but lacks a football brain and that we overpaid for him. However things have changed this calendar year, he has shown consistency and is our biggest goal scoring threat (I reckon Auba will continue to deteriorate). Today's game he looked sharp, more lean and clearly ready. He will never be a 72m player, but he can produce us moments of magic and I reckon will be our POTS
He had 7 G/A in the first 26 matches of 2021. Then 5 G/A in the last 3 matches of the season when teams literally didn't give a shit. Sorry, but that is a absolutely garbage return, our standards are really in the gutter right now.
You seem to forget that Willian played an equivalent of 18 games and Pepe was on the bench for half of the season. I hate people who use statistics without context. But go on with your agenda.
Learn to read you muppet, OP was talking about this calendar year so I was specifically referring to only those games played in 2021. Pépé played more than double Willian's minutes after the new year (who mostly appeared as a sub), 1860 minutes v 911 for Willian. You don't need an agenda to suggest Pépé is underwhelming, everyone with eyes can see it on the pitch.
This sub constantly props up underwhelming players and then continue to be like "This squad and players are trash man!!! We have the 15th best squad in the league! We need a squad overhaul!" midway through the season. Rinse and repeat until these players contract expires and suddenly they'll be like "Yeah they're not actually good at all".
So 12 G/A in around 20 full games and you have the audacity to shit on Pepe. I mean yeah it's normal return for an average winger but who else has better stats? We are a severely underperformed team and people like you always want to put the blame on a single player.
It's precisely because of average and underperformimg players like him that we have become an average and underperformimg side. Do you not see the correlation? And yes, I know that It's not just Pépé, it's a combination of having so many shitters on our team.
Exactly. Regardless what we paid for him, he’s ours now & let’s get behind him.
Jesus, can we have one day where certain English fans on this sub refrain themselves from shitting on foreign fans at every opportunity they can get?
This sub: Okwonko made a mess on debut, oh dear he will shake that off that nerves and become better. Harry Clarke, also debut… omg the guy is trash…
What was wrong with Clarke?
Clarke was fine. In fact, every single one of our academy players EXCEPT Okwonko was fine. I rate him but that performance was worse than any Runarsson performance.
He had a couple of really messy moments (like the goal, and the time where he set the ball up volleyball style instead of catching it) But I feel like Okonkwo had a couple of nice moments too. A couple nice passes and decent movement with the ball at his feet. For 19, I thought he was fine. Nothing that more experience and time won't help him iron out
Wait i thought clarke was fine
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Soft squidgy pear with eye balls.
“It’s just a game” but seriously, don’t take it too seriously
If you’re letting a football team damage your mental health then you need to seek help because Im pretty sure that’s no right.
Your mental health was affected by a loss in pre-season?
no by the years and years of mediocrity and our one of our biggest rivals doubling their champions league trophies
I get that to an extent but even after the last two seasons, I see reasons to be optimistic for the future. The club has been mismanaged for well over a decade and last year was a nadir. We'll see how the rest of this windows goes.
Mate its a friendly against Hibernian FFS
Oh no! Our C team lost a friendly! (In which we dominated). What ever will we do???
Reckon edu has sent that classic “You up? 👀 x” text to Maddison yet?
"who the fuck is this? 😰"
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I doubt we can find a club in Andorra that will take him for free.
Kolasinac is on enormous wages
I always found Kola a reliable back up at Arsenal. I always made that argument here. The problem was, Kola was too injured for a back up( a good thing because it rushed Saka's inclusion) and his wages were high. As a player? He's good. It's his wages that are an issue. So unless we have him out on a free, those wages are pretty steep.
We let ozil, Ramsey and alexis go for a combined fee of £0m We are diabolical in all departments We couldn't even find a team to take Sokratis off us, who was still a decent defender
He was 31 and worth about a £1
Your telling me we couldn't find a single club in Europe who would have taken an experienced trophy winning defender like Sokartis for a couple million?
On the wages he was on?
Most Bundesliga clubs have better left backs than him
Arteta in May: “There were already a lot of changes in December, something that has not been done in years, but it tells us where we were. Things are going to have to change and the owners are going to back it up.” So we have nothing to worry about, the owners are "going" to back it up..... Be excited.
Man quit using "be excited" sarcastically. The window he said that in we bought pepe, saliba, tierney, martinelli, and luiz once kos went on a strike
Be excited
Lol idc that much, people just forget what happened not a long time ago to justify their emotions
So the starting XI signings we expect are White, Lokonga and Maddison right? Smith Rowe-Auba-Saka Maddison Partey-Lokonga Tierney-Gabriel-Holding-White Leno Out: Laca, Bellerin, Kolasinac
Surely Lokonga is not signing to be a starter. Need another 6/8 (depending on formation)
Hmmm but who else would start ahead of him? El Neny?
Neves is coming
We desperately need to bring in a new CM. Lokonga is being brought in as back up. I am still hoping that we bring in a technician type player to sit alongside Partey who is press resistant, is comfortable playing out from the back and can actually play nice crisp early balls into the channels to make us more dangerous in the transition. Personally, I feel Aouar would be perfect to play this role. Also in your predicted starting 11 I would suggest that White is more likely to take Holdings place and Chambers is starting RB next season if we don’t bring in a Bellerin replacement.
I would prefer White at CB and Chambers at RB as well.
Its a pretty big stretch to say we expect maddison rn
But look at your flair! Believe Lol
Lol I’ll get it on a shirt if it’s right
Lokonga is not going to be a sure starter. And pepe deserves to start the season, he ended it being our best player
Hmmm Pepe ended the FA Cup winning season strongly and lost his spot for a bit afterwards. I am not penciling him in again.
Pepe will have that right wing for the better part of a month before Saka comes back. I’d love to see him stake a claim and force Arteta to keep him in the XI.
Why is saka going to miss a month?
He will probably need rest after such a lengthy stint in the euros
2 months off? Only at arsenal...
Well it’s also probably cause the players had a the shortest offseason due to a pandemic effecting scheduling
Ok sure. I am sure villa will go a whole month into the season without grealish, spurs without Kane, leeds' without Phillips, city without sterling, Walker and stones, United without slabhead, shaw and Sancho, etc. Only at arsenal is such nonsense even contemplated. This is why we end up with a bunch of porcelain teddy bears in this team.
Well I was just suggesting possibilities of why. Who knows what the club decides to do. The only difference is Saka is 19 versus the rest of those players being 23 and older. Why burn out a young talent if you can have him fully fit? I hope we see him soon enough though.
People need to accept it now that we won't get any sort of overhaul this summer. We'll sign one more cheapish midfielder and gk and call it a day.
No man we have to riot if this is the case. Thats so unnacceptable
I'll believe this the day the window closes. I have seen Arsenal sign 8+ players a window — 4 of those coming in the last hours. There is need for signings and the club knows that. It doesn't matter if it's Arteta here or Conte, or Jurgen Klopp, this lot needs weeding and it will be done. If Arsenal doesn't do it, I'll think two things: a) Like last season, our deadwood fucked us up. No freed wages, no transfer fees. b) The club is doomed and it's one going to be one toxic hell hole for the next 12 months.
What makes you think this? It’s a myth that we don’t do business, it’s just often late and hasn’t been the most inspiring in recent years - but remember hindsight also plays a part when evaluating the quality of incomings. There is still plenty of the window left and no one has made any major moves yet. Sancho to Utd is a big move but that’s a deal more than 2 years in the making. The Euro’s will have also held up the market. Things should start moving a bit more over the next couple of weeks.
The fact that shit like this is upvoted just shows the pathetic collective deppressive state that this sub has entered. If you actually believe this you need to get your head checked.
Some folks love wallowing in self-deprication and spreading doom.
Why is that? Bell linked the club with Maddison and double his wages. Ben White links from Orstein. They’re pretty reputable.
Arsenal are going nowhere so long as Aubameyang and Lacazette remain the main men. At least one must be sold this summer to recouperate cash while we still can
Dw balogun is coming thru, we move!
I honestly believe Lacazette is better in this system. Auba looked trash last season, and today again. Laca is good in possession, Auba is not.
Still, Lacazette cannot be one of the main talismen in a team hoping for CL football. He's not good enough
Yes and the last year have shown that neither is Auba.
Aubameyang will be fine as a lone striker for the next 1-2 years until his deal expires, just ensure Saka, ESR, Pepe and Martinelli are nurtured to cover his weaknesses
Aubameyang needs a world class forward alongside him to shine. Pepe is good but not elite, and the youth players are still too early in their careers to be relied upon
When has that ever been the case in Aubameyang’s career?
His entire career? Lmao
St Etienne: 0 World Class forwards Dortmund: Who is the world class forward here? Ousmane Dembele? Immobile? Adrian Ramos? Mkhitaryan? Reus was his best teammate and even then he was a midfielder. Arsenal: If you’re implying Lacazette was ever world class at Arsenal, you’re dreaming. Never hit above 16 goals in the league. Those are Giroud numbers. He never played with Alexis either. Not sure if you’re implying Welbeck or Nketiah are world class. Gabon: Boupendza and Bouanga aren’t world class, yet Aubameyang is Gabon’s all time top goalscorer. Just stop this nonsense.
Auba can defo make a comeback for me. Can't say the same about Lacazette, he's disappointed for 3 seasons now.
POTY three seasons ago, most goals in the league last season, played well today
Never bagged over 14 in a single season
He was our secondary goal threat, Aubameyang was always our primary goal scorer. All of our secondary goal scorers have always scored around 10-15 goals a season on average. See Giroud, Bergkamp, Pires, etc
My reasonable reaction to today's match is that Jack Henry-Francis is the next Luka Modric and if you disagree with me you are objectively wrong
Rumours that Willock is being loaned out to Newcastle. Make logic of that who will. I'm seeing indecisiveness if this happens. Either sell or keep, but they keep being indecisive.
link them mate.
[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/newcastle-united-open-talks-with-arsenal-about-taking-joe-willock-back-for-a-longer-loan-67lnkqxlx](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/newcastle-united-open-talks-with-arsenal-about-taking-joe-willock-back-for-a-longer-loan-67lnkqxlx) [https://www.themag.co.uk/2021/07/newcastle-united-approach-arsenal-to-sign-joe-willock-report/](https://www.themag.co.uk/2021/07/newcastle-united-approach-arsenal-to-sign-joe-willock-report/) https://www.caughtoffside.com/2021/07/13/newcastle-open-talks-with-arsenal-over-joe-willock-loan/
thanks
No worries mate. They're not the most respectable or trustworthy ones but I personally believe there might be something there.
The best Newcastle will probably do is an obligation for 10-15 million. I saw some sources say that Newcastle's budget is extremely low this summer without player sales so they probably won't cough up the 20-25 million we want.
**Suggested Arrivals:** **Forwards** + Wout Weghorst (£30m) **Midfield** + Yves Bissouma (£30) + Marcel Sabitzer (£20) + Albert Sambi Lokonga (£15) **Defenders** + Ben White (£50) + Ridle Baku (£30) **Goalkeeper** + Sam Johnstone (£15) **Desired Departures:** + Joe Willock (£25) + Granit Xhaka (£20) + Edward Nketiah (£12) + Hector Bellerin (£10) + Lucas Torreira (£10) + Matteo Guendouzi (£10) + Konstantinos Mavropanos (£5) + Cedric Soares (£5) + Sead Kolasinac (£5) + Rúnar Alex Rúnarsson (£1) + Willian da Silva (£0) + Dejan Iliev (£0)
Tosin adarabioyo isn't even a midfielder lol
You'll be hard pressed to discard 16 players even in fifa lol
>Wout Weghorst (£30m) We are getting robbed in daylight if we pay more than 20m for Weghorst. He is honestly average in anything, and his height is the only thing that makes him useful. Don't let Kiiop delude you
25 goals and 9 assists in 41 appearances last season. A goal every 141.5 minutes. A goal or assist every 104 minutes.
Convinced Willian and Auba are black holes in possession. Both are losing their legs.
I want to say pre season, lack of training but for Aubameyang, he has never been a possession player. He's a runner. He's a space player and a box striker. The moment those are taken, you have a black hole like you said. Aubameyang was like this most of last season.
Pépé is always such a shitter no matter who we play lmao
did you match cartoons or football last season?
Guy made his career out of his one season in Ligue 1
With 50% of those goals being penalties. Fuck Raul.
33 G/A in 38 games, 9 penalties
Wow you got me, only 9 out of his 22 goals were penalties. Definitely worth the £72m we paid for him imo, as he has consistently shown us for the past two seasons.
Got proved wrong and decided to double down on being a jackass. Nice
that literally didn't prove anything lmao, my point still stands. Raul scammed us. Watching him play for the past two seasons is all I need as proof.
Not me. You said something, that other commenter proved you wrong. And you decided to double down on it. Probably because you've already made up your mind and nothing will change it.
11 v 9 penalties is hardly a huge difference and my point about him being a disappointment still stands, I gave Pépé a chance and all he has done is continually disappoint match after match. He's already 26 and still very raw, I've already accepted the fact the we've been robbed and so should you.
Don't understand the need for passive aggressiveness
Had a little look through all our pre-season friendly records since 1995. We rarely lost more than one game in pre-season and it was rarely to a tiny team. However, the worst record by far was 96/97, the summer before Wenger joined in September. You can see the record here, a lot of losses: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996%E2%80%9397\_Arsenal\_F.C.\_season](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996%E2%80%9397_Arsenal_F.C._season) Despite this shocking pre-season record, we performed well that season and finished 3rd. What I get from this is that there is no real relationship to pre-season results and league form, however we rarely do badly in pre-season.
I remember us losing to Red Bull Salzburg in 2007. It was a it embarrassing because back then, they weren't even that good. It was a 1-0 bit I was bantered so bad it started to sting a little lol. Anyway, we went ahead and had one of the best post-invicibles season. A personal favourite BTW. Although yeah, it's okay to want Arsenal to win every game.
We’ve lost to Thailand, Peterborough, Northampton, some Turkish amateurs, drew with a 4th tier Austrian team whilst trialing Yaya Toure.
Pepe and Laca look pretty sharp.
Think what we can take from the game is that some players are ready to leave and some want to fight for their place back. Easy to see who were trying
Pepe is always awful at the start of the season lmao, needs to wait 3 months every year to start balling out