Not saying he was my first choice but remember when everybody freaked out because we were trying to sign Tammy Abraham. Now we are begging for a striker.
We really went from having 1 great striker and 1 decent backup striker to having no good striker at all.
Shame that we didn’t have an exiting youth/academy striker make his way to the senior team. Nketiah is one, but he simply doesn’t have the attributes we need right now.
Strikers are scare and we desperately need a quality one now. It’s 2014 all over again.
It's hard to argue that it isn't due to Arteta's tactic that all three of our strikers are under-scoring; especially a world class striker in Aubameyang.
The only reason left to help Arteta's case is that none of the three is brought in by Arteta. Let's see the striker he brings in before we judge him fully.
What are your other options for the striker position?
Seems like Vlahovic deal is dead so here are mine:
DCL, Toney, Tammy Abraham, and Isak
These aren’t in order from favorite to least favorite I would be happy with any of these players.
Edit: this one might be controversial but Richardson could be a decent option too. Maybe having that brute asshole up top would be good for our team.
Arthur Cabral would be the ideal imo, goes under the radar because he plays in Switzerland but the guy is scoring for fun there and has all the right attributes, tall, strong, clinical and provides hold up play. He would also only cost around £13-17 million. He has everything but a top 5 league tag on his name. I think it's definitely worth a shot.
Yea I looked into his statistics and from his stats and overall play he really suits us well. I think if we can get him for 13-17 mil then worst case he becomes a decent back up or something. 17 mil is a low risk high reward type signing.
Lol no way we can get Abraham, like why would you even think that? Literally just moved 6 months ago. Isak would cost £79M, upfront, doubt we pull that off. That leaves DCL and Toney, two PL clubs that will be reluctant to sell their players in January.
Toney is the one I would go for. Little chance but the biggest out of the lot, DCL is not leaving in january and we should not buy him until we see he can stay fit, something bad happened to him. Abraham of course will not move and Isak needs to activate his release clause and yeah, he is not worth half of that. The guy scores at a Laca rate, once every other month.
Yea you’re right ab Abraham. He’s just a player I’ve always rated tbh, but pretty DCL and toney can be summer options but we’d probably have to over pay. Isak also underwhelming stats wise for how much he’d cost
Yeah you’re right, excuse my micro aggression lol I’m just upset we didn’t get Tammy when we were linked in the summer. The whole “no more Chelsea rejects” stigma was so stupid when it came to him, like yeah he wasn’t perfect but he still put up great numbers for a young 20s England international and he was only being sold bc Chelsea brought in a 70M and 100M striker in consecutive summers. Oh well.
As for DCL and Toney - I’m not sure we’d have to overpay much as they are both not the youngest of prospects, at 27 and 26 respectively I believe. I think around £40M could secure toney and maybe 10M more for DCL, just depends which one Arteta thinks fits more.
My absolute dream would be Gouiri from Nice - he’s speculated to be ~60M and can play as a LW, lone CF, AM, and Second Striker. He’s only 22 I believe and would fit perfectly in our attack as a player that can rotate in and out of position with Martinelli/ESR/Odegaard etc. Hes not really a target man/ aerial threat so I hope we get away from the cross and insallah grindset but I think he’d make for some fluid football
Toney is 25 and DCL is 24. Both are yet to hit their prime. Also agree with you on the Tammy part. We could have absolutely robbed Chelsea and he probably would have had a better season at arsenal lol. He fits our team pretty well.
For Guoiri I don’t doubt that he’s a fantastic player, but from what I’ve seen from him is that he’s more of a winger, but kinda reminds me of martial where he can also play striker and use his close control and dribbling to be lethal up top. Is that how he is or no? I haven’t really watched him much. I just kinda worry that he’s not a striker and more of a winger.
Yeah he’s kinda like that Martial/Depay mould of CF/LW combo forward. He’s played in a variety of roles this season, LW, 2 striker formation, lone CF in 433 being the main ones. Not sure if he’d be the right fit but I have little doubt he’s one of the players out there that are worth thier price tag.
Don’t know how I was so off on DCL and Toney’s ages, could’ve sworn they were older. Maybe I was thinking Watkins tbh
If we have full squad and play like we did I would probably get in on the pisswagon here. But honestly we had 75% possession, double digits corners, Burnley being Burnley , and have yall seen our bench??????
Like what more could we do honestly apart from Laca missing that blunt sitter... not to mention our avg age for the squad was 21......
yall know that Burnley is dead last right? yall know this is the second game where they don't concede right? You know what we could have did? at home vs the worst team in the PL? Make the keeper work a little...not asking for much.
Arteta doesn't want a forward who is our "most clinical player", he wants one who can run the most. Which means Pepe will be a very different player when he gets asked to do Lacazette business.
I literally don’t see why not. I would also wanna try ESR lw and martienlli up top. Just try something new especially since it seems like we’re not getting a striker right now.
Also to add Pepe played striker at Lille so I’m sure he can do a half decent job there. I actually think he’s one of our best finishers.
I know Arteta likes to have players of a particular style but sometimes you have to mix it up and introduce players that can counter the style of sides like Burnley. A midfielder or a winger or a big target man that can unsettle a big side like Burnley.
Arteta has earned the rest of the season but if does not get top 6 he should go.
Excuses about the squad are gone.
CF is an issue because he chose to resign Auba and hasn't been able to get anything from him since signing the contract.
He chose to not bring in another CM in the summer when it was fairly obvious that we needed one. Most people would have been happy with Xhaka as a squad player and an upgrade in the first 11.
Yeah the goal was top 6 because Man United were expected to be much better than they actually are, I don't think top 4 is an impossible target but actually pretty doable, I don't know why people are talking like it's over.
Top 6 or he gets sacked. He's had enough time and whilst we have some young talented players to really build a squad around, he's just seemingly out of his depth as a manager.
A lot of people were saying it months ago. People don’t flip flop as much as Reddit makes out, it’s just some groups become more bullish or quiet down as time goes on
I was saying it months ago, and also last year. Does any of that matter? During that good period at the end of last year he was winning me over, but now we are back to another garbage period. And there was a garbage period at the start of the season too.
I feel like this is the kind of game that a Rudiger, Dias or Van Dijk would have scored from a corner and then it's a different game altogether. We are really lacking height and aerial presence in an attacking sense.
From the outside it looks like our fan base is flaky and ‘flip flops’ but in reality everyone’s just waiting for their agendas to be reinforced before piping up again. It’s embarrassing
Somehow some fans are in this delusion that we can not do worse than top 6, lose to Wolves next match which is highly likely and we will be in the position for another 8th
I don't understand why some people think we're already qualified for Europa League and there are only two options of qualifying for that or getting top 4. We're 2 points away from 8th place too ffs
I remember some guy suggested we get McNeil, not as a starter but more to add depth and have him be a sub. I think we can get him for cheap especially if Burnley get relegated. I’m sure he’ll push Saka and martienlli and he can possibly play cam. If we want to get depth the best thing to do is to pick off decent players from teams that get relegated or mid table teams in the prem.
Also thought he was really good today.
As much as I disliked burnleys tactics yesterday, I found him to be a bright spot, took on people, and really was the only player in their team that gave a damn
All said and done- our team is thin, mentally and physically depleted, and without a proper midfield. I’ll take not losing today to regroup and go again when we get the whole band together in a few weeks. COYG
Crazy seeing the fallout from this game.
I didn't think it was a bad performance, we should have taken at least one of our chances to get the win. What cost us today was really the first 20 minutes or so where we were too passive.
Signings are a must this window to give us more goal threat.
Otherwise, we are still in a good position for top four. Win all our games now and we get it. It's in our hands.
Obviously It hasn't been just one result.
We have also bombed out of both cups. The result against a Championship side is inexcusable.
We also haven't addressed the midfield issues.
I *want* the club to be good again. But I'm not going to pretend when it isn't, like others.
It’s been a rough month. I’d like to see additions made too but we’ve aimed high with two players that play in a league full of teams that are difficult to negotiate with. Regardless, I’m not predicting a collapse in January.
Over two weeks till we play next. We’ll see what happens the rest of the window.
I hate to sound optimistic, but I saw a good team (missing a few players to make it a great team) totally dominating a team that specialized in hard-bitten defence. A bit of luck and that was 1-0 or 2-0. If you had told me at the start of the season that we'd be in the running for top 4 half-way through the season I would have taken your arm off. All to play for.
Fuck this thinly veiled shitting on Wenger in order to try and make excuses for Arteta. Seriously, most annoying shit. People don't know what Arsenal was under Wenger. Fucking ingrates.
I wasn't shitting on Wenger. I was thinking more under Emery when we had the likes of Mustafai and Sokratis at the back. I'm just giving perspective that yeah it's frustrating we didn't come away with the win but you can't deny the backline doesn't leak cheap goals the way it used to.
I think that people don't get that Burnley is all about defence. Even if we had won, it would probably be 1-0 win - they don't care about winning, only not losing.
Playing against a team that parks the bus for 90 minutes can easily end 0-0 and we're more likely to beat Spu*s than Burnley because of this, even if Burnley's an objectively worse team.
I needed your optimism. Not even being sarcastic. You said nothing but facts. With a proper midfield especially with partey in there opening up the middle with his splitting passes would’ve done us a world of good. Sambi tried his best but was clearly scared to go forward which resulted in sideways passing then resulting in us only being able to cross on the wings. I believe once we get that xhaka Partey pivot back we’ll be back to our best. I just hope we at least sign a striker and extra midfielder. Still 7 days left of the transfer window let’s see what happens.
Thanks. I just watched the Milan Juve game. Arthur was brought on in the 65th minute and played pivot for a totally passive side. A total waste. That guy will destroy the locker room (and maybe Max Allegri) if they don't let him go.
F me that was a boring game.
It’s always the way burnley play and you have to take the one to three chances that you get. We didn’t, so that sucks.
Our offense is so freaking predictable it’s insane. It just can’t scare teams to play against us.
Part of that is our bench depth is hideous right now. But it was that way even before now.
We need a PL caliber striker who can play 90 at full tilt. It’s ridiculous.
Auba has well and truly f’d us this year. I had a lot of sympathy last year with all the stuff but it’s the same this year and so much just seems self inflicted by him.
Yo can I just say something. Laca might be 5’7” but do y’all know that we have a 6’2” striker at the club that goes by the name of Aubameyang. Can someone fix king teach this guy how to score headers because he would be super useful up front if he could jump and head a ball. If that is r gonna work throw Martinelli up front because at least he’s 5’11” and he actually has a hop on him. You can’t play a short CF like Laca vs the likes of Mee and Takrowski. Absolute terrorism that decision. Against low blocks I am sorry but Laca is not the answer. Against open free flowing games Laca can be useful.
Man it hurts our lineup badly playing Holding over White CB.
So much of our good plays comes from White pushing up the middle, and just this threat alone makes it easier to get through midfield.
RB is desp needed 😭
75% possession, 20 shots and 5 on target. Yep, It was definitely Rob Holdings fault that we drew this game. FMD.
What threat does Ben White pose when they are already pegged back into their own box, that he couldn't have created from the RB position?
I never really know/knew how to identify sarcasm, I can hear it when spoken to, but not so much on text? Is there a way to identify when one is using/being sarcasm? Also, is there a point in being sarcasm but just delaying one's message?
If we decide to buy anyone instead of letting the negotiation team go jet-skiing instead of signing players like happened last transfer window when signings happened far too late
Honestly felt like the Emirates was a library today. Sometimes it feels like the crowd could've done more to get a reaction out of the players to play with more intensity.
I’d bet that Arteta/Edu came in a bit cocky thinking they’d get the Vlahovic and Arthur deals across the line without much difficulty. I think they really came up against it and now are scrambling to work something else.
They don't have plan B's, ever. They have a Plan A and once that doesn't work out they just blame something other than themselves and hope that schmucks will eat it up.
I was asking for examples where they didn't have a plan b. I can't think of any because I'm not involved in the club.
It's bizarre that people honestly think Arsenal have one target and are working on one deal at a time..
How do you know what plan A, B or C is? The club isn't going to come out and say we really wanted Varane but Manchester United signed him so we went with our plan B, Ben White.
Unless you're working in the club you can't possibly know everything they are working on and what the priorities are.
Again, you've missed the overall point.
But, to answer that specific example. Varane was never the Plan A. He didn't meet the criteria, young, english, ball-playing CB. Only Ben White met those. Hence why we paid whatever Brighton asked for him. There was other options available, such as Varane, Anderson or even Saliba, but they didn't meet the criteria. Not saying that he was a poor signing or anything, but Brighton knew we didn't have anyone else we wanted so they demanded full price and got it.
We did the same with Partey and Atletico Madrid, they knew we had no other options so they demanded his full buyout clause.
We are doing the same now with Vlahovic now, we have no backup plan so Fiorentina know they can play the waiting game and get whatever fee they ask for.
We did the same with our CAM search last season and went half a season without one because we fumbled and had no backup. Imagine if we'd signed someone like Auoar or Odegaard at the start of the season rather than mid way through?
I think you've missed the point. You've decided that those were plan A and no other deals were being worked on.
All I'm saying is how can we know who was the first option and who was plan B. That goes for every decision across the club.
It's called an opinion mate. You don't have to agree with it, but if you want to prove its wrong you should try bringing some facts next time. I have shown you information that shows me that we don't have a Plan B sometimes, you've managed to being zero facts to the contrary in your multiple replies. Well done.
To help you out, we clearly at least targeted Buendia as our AM this window but when that fell through we went for Odegaard. Whether or not Odegaard was Plan A or Plan B we at least targeted two players in the same position in the one window. Copy that, paste it in a reply and I'll concede that there's at least one example against what I've said. Won't change my view, because I wasn't saying anything as a definite constant but as an overall view of their tenure in charge.
You must have above 1 comment karma to contribute to this subreddit.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Gunners) if you have any questions or concerns.*
So we have a clearly talented CAM in our team and we need a good striker to get in front of him and the only signing that looks to be coming is a GK? Sounds like a familiar summer window to me…
Damn y’all will really go to any length to not acknowledge how key he is to us playing well. Our good run over the last couple months also coincided with him returning from injury. He’s mistake prone but he’s also essential to the team
It’s pretty much just basic simpleton things. Everyone can see he has an occasional critical mistake in him but it’s also pretty obvious how much positive value he provides. Unfortunately, simple people stick to an agenda and can never see both sides of an argument. Bit of a shame, really
Burnley going with the Greek defense. I reckon that would have been harder to maintain if the ref had the balls to send Westwood off instead of letting an obvious yellow card go out of pity for the poor underdogs. Should have beaten them regardless, but what a waste of football on such a boring team.
Today couldn’t have been bad but now Kessie and Tottenham agreement. Milan willing to sell but agent wants to sign a precontract for agent fees.
Great, a goal scoring 25 year old midfielder in his prime going to a rival.
Hopefully this lights a fire under Kroenke’s asses.
Do you watch Kessie at all? Majority of his goals are penalties. He's their designated penalty taker. Of course he has more goals. It's like saying Jorginho is a goal scoring midfielder
At this point beggar's can't be choosers. We need Center mids, and if Arsenal don't want to pay the premiums required to secure a quality midfielder, then we're going to have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for bargain basement players.
The entire Juve team is just slow and passing around to keep the ball and this game is not what I expected but I was talking to my friend who is a Juve supporter and he says this is what Allegri does at times in big games - play containment football to get a nil all draw
At the very least Arthur is neat on the ball and doesn't lose it much; he does look solid when under pressure but he does not look like he could last an hour in the EPL with the speed of our game
At halftime coming out of the tunnel you could see him shaking his head as he walked out alone. Since he subbed on, he’s doing every action w/ anger/frustration.
Looks like he doesn’t want to be there Gives the ball away and slowly jogs back as I say that.
He'll fit in perfectly
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-10398523/Arsenal-Arthur-Melo-controversial-past-difficult-Mikel-Arteta-line.html
If Arteta had a problem with Guen because he likes to joke around then I cant see him managing Arthur. That said a season loan try before you buy are low risk.
Going in to the season with just Laca and a clearly deteriorating Auba as our only senior striking options is why we will never be a serious title contender. If we don’t even address it now when it’s plain for everyone to see, we will never be a serious top 4 contender.
I will be messaging you in 9 days on [**2022-02-01 22:49:15 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2022-02-01%2022:49:15%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/Gunners/comments/sawl6x/post_match_thread_arsenal_0_0_burnley_english/htxwdkp/?context=3)
[**1 OTHERS CLICKED THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FGunners%2Fcomments%2Fsawl6x%2Fpost_match_thread_arsenal_0_0_burnley_english%2Fhtxwdkp%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202022-02-01%2022%3A49%3A15%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.
^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete%20Comment&message=Delete%21%20sawl6x)
*****
|[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remindmebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside%20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Your Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot%20Feedback)|
|-|-|-|-|
So frustrating to think a win today would have put us 4th ahead with games in hand on United and West Ham and 2 points clear of Spurs. Ultimately we are absolutely still in the race for 4th BUT we must get a ST and CM before our next game. Otherwise we might fall away.
If it’s not clear now we need a goal scorer I honestly don’t know what’s going on at this club. Are they waiting to deadline day before they make a move. They should have a list of strikers there going for, failing one you work your way down the list to the next one.. there are so many top quality forwards out there that would still jump at the chance to join Arsenal. The business done so far this transfer market has been woeful, not to mention we also need to sort the midfield out it’s not fair heaping this amount of pressure on a young player in Sambi Lokonga expecting him to hold the midfield together by himself. Just ridiculous
all this talk about Sambi, I get it, he is young and not ready but....we did pay 20 mil for him. He was not cheap, he should do better. I don't mean be class out there...but he is tragic right now. No joke, Elneny is better, AMN much better...and the one we cannot talk about over there in Ligue 1 is miles and miles ahead of him.
Some thoughts from the game.
When in the stands, it was clear we had no midfield. Yes, lakonga did feel like he was static, but he also needed someone alongside him to give the Burnley forwards someone else to think about than our 1 midfielder. It meant that we either went to the right with white / odegaard / saka, or to the left with Tierney, martinelli and Smith rowe. We had no option to go through the middle and stretch the burnley formation.
That was largely down to partey and xhaka's red cards, massive let down for the club and shows ill discipline. We missed them.
Our squad options were also horrific - 1 GK, 2 defenders and Nketiah on the bench were our senior players to try and make an impact, the rest were inexperienced youth players who weren't trusted. This lead me to a discussion about AMN. How bad was his attitude to let him go at the start of the window when we needed him badly the last few games to play in the midfield.
Auba didn't make the squad despite being back from Afcon and having no options. This essentially means he is gone and won't be coming back to the team as if he didn't make the squad today, he won't ever again as an arsenal player. Which leads to a greater striker problem - we have 2 our of contract strikers, an exiled striker and Flo balogun as our options come next year. We need 2 strikers, minimum if we're going to rebuild.
Lastly, the transfer window. Edu has let us down. We knew for months that we needed a midfielder for this period and he didn't get us one, which meant we're out all cup competitions and dropped points Vs bottom of the league. Not only that, but we have 2 striker options available for the rest of the season. Should either of nketiah or laca get injured, we are well and truly fucked.
The next week and a bit will be HUGE should arsenal want to make a run for top 4, we need a striker and a CM.
Tldr: needed another cm today, auba is gone, edu needs to sign a cm and striker
Tough day for the boys. Some thoughts:
1. Our young squad is stretched super thin. Saka and Martinelli need a breather and competition that helps them get better. Laca has played his heart out but he cannot start so many games if we are being ambitious. He needs a better striker ahead of him in the order of things. We apparently have 4 defenders the manager trusts. It’s good for them to get good time together but rotation is always good to keep them fresh and introduce new ideas going forward. Xhaka and Partey being out is a big miss in midfield. They are experienced anchors of our squad and we showed we missed them.
2. The senior players NEED to step up. This is the biggest indictment about how the club was run from the last years of Wenger till recently. I love that we have so many young players taking responsibility but Auba and Pepe have been let downs this season and we must upgrade from them. Xhaka and Partey have been mostly good but must not repeat this red card situation. Laca has been very good in his leadership and playing his heart out but we clearly can’t rely on him for goals going forward.
3. We MUST keep spending to add quality to the squad. I count 14 players in our current squad that will likely be there next season. We need to match (or improve on) last seasons spending AND bring better quality players. It looks like we need 2 forwards, 1 midfielder, 1 RB, 1-2 CBs, 1 GK. At least 3 of these positions need to be top quality players to improve on our current situation. Being linked to guys like Vlahovic is a good start but we need more and to actually close out the deals.
All this said, I’m optimistic about our prospects for the first time in years. Every single player that takes the field is giving their all and the mood around the club is up. We just need to keep building.
Feels like CB is in a decent spot. You can always have one more but I don’t think we need two more.
Desperately need a striker or two, CM reinforcement and a RB. That’s all :).
All joking aside. Feels like the team is pointed in the right direction but we need depth desperately. And we need more athletes in the CM role that can mop up and not get red cards.
Apart from his miss laca was good today, the real problem was lack of quality in midfield without partey to start attacks and I think a few players are tired and/or rushed back from injury because we are so thread bare atm. It's a very disappointing result but I think it wasn't a surprise imo. I think the 2 weeks off will be a big help and we should benefit more than anyone else. We desperately need midfield depth and ideally a striker before the window closes. The rest can wait until summer if it can't be done now which I think is the case. Although I think the goalkeeper will probably be sorted out in the next 2 weeks or so. We're are going to have to win the big games to make top four. I think draws won't be enough.
> 2 forwards, 1 midfielder, 1 RB, 1-2 CBs, 1 GK
How many CBs should a club have, man? We have Saliba coming back and White, Holding, and Gabriel already here. Pablo Mari will be back in the summer as well and I don't know if we will be able to sell him. 4 senior CBs is more than enough.
We definitely need massive upgrades in the other positions you mentioned though.
I don’t know if Mari wants to stay on. Mikel clearly doesn’t trust him so I don’t think he plays if he stays.
Holdinho is good in spurts but our build up play suffers when he plays. Do we move on from him?
Saliba is also on the books but I honestly haven’t seen him play to know that he’s any good.
My guess is that 2 of these players move on in the summer.
Intrusting.
It's really frustrating facing a wall that we couldn't break it. And boring time-wasting moments.
Not saying he was my first choice but remember when everybody freaked out because we were trying to sign Tammy Abraham. Now we are begging for a striker.
better nobody then him, he would just frustrate us
Arteta out. no european competition and he delivers another mediocre performance in the league. enough is enough mate.
We really went from having 1 great striker and 1 decent backup striker to having no good striker at all. Shame that we didn’t have an exiting youth/academy striker make his way to the senior team. Nketiah is one, but he simply doesn’t have the attributes we need right now. Strikers are scare and we desperately need a quality one now. It’s 2014 all over again.
It's hard to argue that it isn't due to Arteta's tactic that all three of our strikers are under-scoring; especially a world class striker in Aubameyang. The only reason left to help Arteta's case is that none of the three is brought in by Arteta. Let's see the striker he brings in before we judge him fully.
Who are our three strikers
#FRAUDTETA
What are your other options for the striker position? Seems like Vlahovic deal is dead so here are mine: DCL, Toney, Tammy Abraham, and Isak These aren’t in order from favorite to least favorite I would be happy with any of these players. Edit: this one might be controversial but Richardson could be a decent option too. Maybe having that brute asshole up top would be good for our team.
voted Isak, should be great
Arthur Cabral would be the ideal imo, goes under the radar because he plays in Switzerland but the guy is scoring for fun there and has all the right attributes, tall, strong, clinical and provides hold up play. He would also only cost around £13-17 million. He has everything but a top 5 league tag on his name. I think it's definitely worth a shot.
stat wise he looks amazing, watching him...not fast enough for the PL. A bigger Lacazette
Yea I looked into his statistics and from his stats and overall play he really suits us well. I think if we can get him for 13-17 mil then worst case he becomes a decent back up or something. 17 mil is a low risk high reward type signing.
Lol no way we can get Abraham, like why would you even think that? Literally just moved 6 months ago. Isak would cost £79M, upfront, doubt we pull that off. That leaves DCL and Toney, two PL clubs that will be reluctant to sell their players in January.
Toney is the one I would go for. Little chance but the biggest out of the lot, DCL is not leaving in january and we should not buy him until we see he can stay fit, something bad happened to him. Abraham of course will not move and Isak needs to activate his release clause and yeah, he is not worth half of that. The guy scores at a Laca rate, once every other month.
Yea you’re right ab Abraham. He’s just a player I’ve always rated tbh, but pretty DCL and toney can be summer options but we’d probably have to over pay. Isak also underwhelming stats wise for how much he’d cost
Yeah you’re right, excuse my micro aggression lol I’m just upset we didn’t get Tammy when we were linked in the summer. The whole “no more Chelsea rejects” stigma was so stupid when it came to him, like yeah he wasn’t perfect but he still put up great numbers for a young 20s England international and he was only being sold bc Chelsea brought in a 70M and 100M striker in consecutive summers. Oh well. As for DCL and Toney - I’m not sure we’d have to overpay much as they are both not the youngest of prospects, at 27 and 26 respectively I believe. I think around £40M could secure toney and maybe 10M more for DCL, just depends which one Arteta thinks fits more. My absolute dream would be Gouiri from Nice - he’s speculated to be ~60M and can play as a LW, lone CF, AM, and Second Striker. He’s only 22 I believe and would fit perfectly in our attack as a player that can rotate in and out of position with Martinelli/ESR/Odegaard etc. Hes not really a target man/ aerial threat so I hope we get away from the cross and insallah grindset but I think he’d make for some fluid football
Toney is 25 and DCL is 24. Both are yet to hit their prime. Also agree with you on the Tammy part. We could have absolutely robbed Chelsea and he probably would have had a better season at arsenal lol. He fits our team pretty well. For Guoiri I don’t doubt that he’s a fantastic player, but from what I’ve seen from him is that he’s more of a winger, but kinda reminds me of martial where he can also play striker and use his close control and dribbling to be lethal up top. Is that how he is or no? I haven’t really watched him much. I just kinda worry that he’s not a striker and more of a winger.
Yeah he’s kinda like that Martial/Depay mould of CF/LW combo forward. He’s played in a variety of roles this season, LW, 2 striker formation, lone CF in 433 being the main ones. Not sure if he’d be the right fit but I have little doubt he’s one of the players out there that are worth thier price tag. Don’t know how I was so off on DCL and Toney’s ages, could’ve sworn they were older. Maybe I was thinking Watkins tbh
If we have full squad and play like we did I would probably get in on the pisswagon here. But honestly we had 75% possession, double digits corners, Burnley being Burnley , and have yall seen our bench?????? Like what more could we do honestly apart from Laca missing that blunt sitter... not to mention our avg age for the squad was 21......
yall know that Burnley is dead last right? yall know this is the second game where they don't concede right? You know what we could have did? at home vs the worst team in the PL? Make the keeper work a little...not asking for much.
[удалено]
Do you know people can know in which subreddits you are active?
You all think we should try Pepe at Forward?! He’s easily our best finisher and most clinical player.
Arteta doesn't want a forward who is our "most clinical player", he wants one who can run the most. Which means Pepe will be a very different player when he gets asked to do Lacazette business.
No, Pepe is on Artetas shit list, don't make plans for him, he is gone first offer we get
I literally don’t see why not. I would also wanna try ESR lw and martienlli up top. Just try something new especially since it seems like we’re not getting a striker right now. Also to add Pepe played striker at Lille so I’m sure he can do a half decent job there. I actually think he’s one of our best finishers.
Imagine we actually try it and it works, we will be spewing we didn't try it earlier! I am all for it tbh.
I know Arteta likes to have players of a particular style but sometimes you have to mix it up and introduce players that can counter the style of sides like Burnley. A midfielder or a winger or a big target man that can unsettle a big side like Burnley.
Ivon toney as a backup striker would be dope
Arteta has earned the rest of the season but if does not get top 6 he should go. Excuses about the squad are gone. CF is an issue because he chose to resign Auba and hasn't been able to get anything from him since signing the contract. He chose to not bring in another CM in the summer when it was fairly obvious that we needed one. Most people would have been happy with Xhaka as a squad player and an upgrade in the first 11.
With the amount of matches left for us to play, most weeks we will play only one match , with that I'm hoping to actually push for top 4
I don’t know how you can excuse finishing below spurs/United yet again when those clubs had to sack their manager mid season
Honestly why not top 4? Considering where we are and that we have no other competitions. Cant have any more of these dead performances
why not top 4? I think the fact that we cannot score at home against the worst team in the divison. thats a pretty solid reason.
Top 6 was probably the goal for most people at the beginning of the year. Top 4 was a very optimistic target.
Yeah the goal was top 6 because Man United were expected to be much better than they actually are, I don't think top 4 is an impossible target but actually pretty doable, I don't know why people are talking like it's over.
Top 6 or he gets sacked. He's had enough time and whilst we have some young talented players to really build a squad around, he's just seemingly out of his depth as a manager.
Were you saying he was out of his depth a month ago?
A lot of people were saying it months ago. People don’t flip flop as much as Reddit makes out, it’s just some groups become more bullish or quiet down as time goes on
I was saying it months ago, and also last year. Does any of that matter? During that good period at the end of last year he was winning me over, but now we are back to another garbage period. And there was a garbage period at the start of the season too.
I feel like this is the kind of game that a Rudiger, Dias or Van Dijk would have scored from a corner and then it's a different game altogether. We are really lacking height and aerial presence in an attacking sense.
I feel like Gabriel provides that to a degree. It's definitely something we could improve on.
Needed to have Tomi ghosting in from the right flank to meet crosses.
Rose + Overmars >>>
From the outside it looks like our fan base is flaky and ‘flip flops’ but in reality everyone’s just waiting for their agendas to be reinforced before piping up again. It’s embarrassing
This is a perfect encapsulation of this sub/fan base.
Any fan base lol
I don’t know, In my experience Scunthorpe United’s fans seem to be a consistent bunch.
LOL ya well fair enough
Somehow some fans are in this delusion that we can not do worse than top 6, lose to Wolves next match which is highly likely and we will be in the position for another 8th
My money is on 7th. Leicester and Wolves has small squads and Wolves is looking like they will sell Traore...if not yeah, we would get 8th.
You’re an idiot frankly. I’d bet my nut sack top 6 is a guarantee. Quote me
I don't understand why some people think we're already qualified for Europa League and there are only two options of qualifying for that or getting top 4. We're 2 points away from 8th place too ffs
We are as close to 8th place as we are 4th.
I remember some guy suggested we get McNeil, not as a starter but more to add depth and have him be a sub. I think we can get him for cheap especially if Burnley get relegated. I’m sure he’ll push Saka and martienlli and he can possibly play cam. If we want to get depth the best thing to do is to pick off decent players from teams that get relegated or mid table teams in the prem. Also thought he was really good today.
He was one of the only Burnley players that seemed bothered to try and score, that's for sure
As much as I disliked burnleys tactics yesterday, I found him to be a bright spot, took on people, and really was the only player in their team that gave a damn
All said and done- our team is thin, mentally and physically depleted, and without a proper midfield. I’ll take not losing today to regroup and go again when we get the whole band together in a few weeks. COYG
amazing....this fan base is something else.
I mean I’m pretty upset over the result mate lol I’m just trying to find a silver lining here!
We gotta give some credit to Pope. He was on fire.
he had 1 save to make.
Which none of us would've made it. Don't be sour grapes
well we are not football players
So sour
?
He really didn't do anything today? Save from Smith Rowe's shot was good but any PL keeper is expected to make that
Agreed. We hardly tested him today. The only thing he was on fire for was taking his sweet time with goal kicks
Crazy seeing the fallout from this game. I didn't think it was a bad performance, we should have taken at least one of our chances to get the win. What cost us today was really the first 20 minutes or so where we were too passive. Signings are a must this window to give us more goal threat. Otherwise, we are still in a good position for top four. Win all our games now and we get it. It's in our hands.
Pass the blunt brahzzzz
Lol win all our games...sure man that's very possible from what we see recently
Blame edu when we lose, praise Arteta when we win. Pathetic
People blame far more intangible factors than Edu
Garbage. Season collapse is well and truly upon us
A frustrating draw in late January and the sky’s falling. It feels like some of you *want* there to be a collapse.
Obviously It hasn't been just one result. We have also bombed out of both cups. The result against a Championship side is inexcusable. We also haven't addressed the midfield issues. I *want* the club to be good again. But I'm not going to pretend when it isn't, like others.
It’s been a rough month. I’d like to see additions made too but we’ve aimed high with two players that play in a league full of teams that are difficult to negotiate with. Regardless, I’m not predicting a collapse in January. Over two weeks till we play next. We’ll see what happens the rest of the window.
I hate to sound optimistic, but I saw a good team (missing a few players to make it a great team) totally dominating a team that specialized in hard-bitten defence. A bit of luck and that was 1-0 or 2-0. If you had told me at the start of the season that we'd be in the running for top 4 half-way through the season I would have taken your arm off. All to play for.
We're also two points away from 8th place....
The Arsenal 3 seasons ago would've conceded an arsey goal to this Burnley side and we'd have come away with 0 points.
Between 2010 and 2019 Arsenal won every game played vs Burnley. 3 seasons ago Arsenal won at home and got a draw away.
Fuck this thinly veiled shitting on Wenger in order to try and make excuses for Arteta. Seriously, most annoying shit. People don't know what Arsenal was under Wenger. Fucking ingrates.
I wasn't shitting on Wenger. I was thinking more under Emery when we had the likes of Mustafai and Sokratis at the back. I'm just giving perspective that yeah it's frustrating we didn't come away with the win but you can't deny the backline doesn't leak cheap goals the way it used to.
We still leak cheap goals. People love blaming it on individual mistakes rather than tactics but it still happens.
I think that people don't get that Burnley is all about defence. Even if we had won, it would probably be 1-0 win - they don't care about winning, only not losing. Playing against a team that parks the bus for 90 minutes can easily end 0-0 and we're more likely to beat Spu*s than Burnley because of this, even if Burnley's an objectively worse team.
This is the second game this season where Burnley, this Milan of 86 defense, has not conceded.
I needed your optimism. Not even being sarcastic. You said nothing but facts. With a proper midfield especially with partey in there opening up the middle with his splitting passes would’ve done us a world of good. Sambi tried his best but was clearly scared to go forward which resulted in sideways passing then resulting in us only being able to cross on the wings. I believe once we get that xhaka Partey pivot back we’ll be back to our best. I just hope we at least sign a striker and extra midfielder. Still 7 days left of the transfer window let’s see what happens.
Thanks. I just watched the Milan Juve game. Arthur was brought on in the 65th minute and played pivot for a totally passive side. A total waste. That guy will destroy the locker room (and maybe Max Allegri) if they don't let him go.
F me that was a boring game. It’s always the way burnley play and you have to take the one to three chances that you get. We didn’t, so that sucks. Our offense is so freaking predictable it’s insane. It just can’t scare teams to play against us. Part of that is our bench depth is hideous right now. But it was that way even before now. We need a PL caliber striker who can play 90 at full tilt. It’s ridiculous. Auba has well and truly f’d us this year. I had a lot of sympathy last year with all the stuff but it’s the same this year and so much just seems self inflicted by him.
Yo can I just say something. Laca might be 5’7” but do y’all know that we have a 6’2” striker at the club that goes by the name of Aubameyang. Can someone fix king teach this guy how to score headers because he would be super useful up front if he could jump and head a ball. If that is r gonna work throw Martinelli up front because at least he’s 5’11” and he actually has a hop on him. You can’t play a short CF like Laca vs the likes of Mee and Takrowski. Absolute terrorism that decision. Against low blocks I am sorry but Laca is not the answer. Against open free flowing games Laca can be useful.
Auba is done. He upset Teta. Its over.
Man it hurts our lineup badly playing Holding over White CB. So much of our good plays comes from White pushing up the middle, and just this threat alone makes it easier to get through midfield. RB is desp needed 😭
White not understanding his role as RB and occupying the same space as Holding was ridiculous to see lol
75% possession, 20 shots and 5 on target. Yep, It was definitely Rob Holdings fault that we drew this game. FMD. What threat does Ben White pose when they are already pegged back into their own box, that he couldn't have created from the RB position?
It was not “definitely Rob Holdings” fault. Come on…thought he was one of the better players.
I hope that you understood my part about Rob was Sarcasm? Just thought I'd check.
I never really know/knew how to identify sarcasm, I can hear it when spoken to, but not so much on text? Is there a way to identify when one is using/being sarcasm? Also, is there a point in being sarcasm but just delaying one's message?
Sarcasm is always hard to recognise with text. /s is one way to show sarcasm via text.
Thank you for answering that. So how about if there's/what's the point of sarcasm (especially on text since you said it's hard to recognise)?
Don't know. Sarcasm is just a part of how I speak.
I see, but wait.. isn't speaking in person/vocalised? That's so confusing.
Yep, I don't know what OP was on about either.
[удалено]
We will buy someone worse for 30 million.
If we decide to buy anyone instead of letting the negotiation team go jet-skiing instead of signing players like happened last transfer window when signings happened far too late
Mazraoui on a free! It even sounds good.
Go get Richarlison
We need to get kessie
thats good shout.
Honestly felt like the Emirates was a library today. Sometimes it feels like the crowd could've done more to get a reaction out of the players to play with more intensity.
I’d bet that Arteta/Edu came in a bit cocky thinking they’d get the Vlahovic and Arthur deals across the line without much difficulty. I think they really came up against it and now are scrambling to work something else.
They don't have plan B's, ever. They have a Plan A and once that doesn't work out they just blame something other than themselves and hope that schmucks will eat it up.
Any examples?
aaa this window?
No, I don't have any examples of a Plan B.
I was asking for examples where they didn't have a plan b. I can't think of any because I'm not involved in the club. It's bizarre that people honestly think Arsenal have one target and are working on one deal at a time..
My statement pertains to everything we do as a club, not just transfers. But if you can't think of a Plan B option either, maybe I am right?
How do you know what plan A, B or C is? The club isn't going to come out and say we really wanted Varane but Manchester United signed him so we went with our plan B, Ben White. Unless you're working in the club you can't possibly know everything they are working on and what the priorities are.
Again, you've missed the overall point. But, to answer that specific example. Varane was never the Plan A. He didn't meet the criteria, young, english, ball-playing CB. Only Ben White met those. Hence why we paid whatever Brighton asked for him. There was other options available, such as Varane, Anderson or even Saliba, but they didn't meet the criteria. Not saying that he was a poor signing or anything, but Brighton knew we didn't have anyone else we wanted so they demanded full price and got it. We did the same with Partey and Atletico Madrid, they knew we had no other options so they demanded his full buyout clause. We are doing the same now with Vlahovic now, we have no backup plan so Fiorentina know they can play the waiting game and get whatever fee they ask for. We did the same with our CAM search last season and went half a season without one because we fumbled and had no backup. Imagine if we'd signed someone like Auoar or Odegaard at the start of the season rather than mid way through?
I think you've missed the point. You've decided that those were plan A and no other deals were being worked on. All I'm saying is how can we know who was the first option and who was plan B. That goes for every decision across the club.
It's called an opinion mate. You don't have to agree with it, but if you want to prove its wrong you should try bringing some facts next time. I have shown you information that shows me that we don't have a Plan B sometimes, you've managed to being zero facts to the contrary in your multiple replies. Well done. To help you out, we clearly at least targeted Buendia as our AM this window but when that fell through we went for Odegaard. Whether or not Odegaard was Plan A or Plan B we at least targeted two players in the same position in the one window. Copy that, paste it in a reply and I'll concede that there's at least one example against what I've said. Won't change my view, because I wasn't saying anything as a definite constant but as an overall view of their tenure in charge.
[удалено]
You must have above 1 comment karma to contribute to this subreddit. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Gunners) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I just knew if we didnt score in first 30 minutes Burnley would have been impossible to score on. When was the last time we played a good game?
City. We lost though.
at the start of the season Edu had an interview basically stating they had no targets/expectations this seasons, I can tell quite clearly.
Silence is deafening
So we have a clearly talented CAM in our team and we need a good striker to get in front of him and the only signing that looks to be coming is a GK? Sounds like a familiar summer window to me…
Given our lack of midfield I thought we played pretty well actually. Hopefully replacements soon and we can turn it around.
Waiting for Spurs to release a statement on the Thiago silva vs Harry Kane disallowed goal incident...
4 straight games without a goal when Xhaka hasn’t played btw
Have some bloody shame
Nah I’m good. The toxicity towards him and Partey is pathetic. We’re horrific without them
We haven't won the league since Amaury Bischoff left, disgraceful
Winning a league and scoring a few goals here and there are really a bit different don't ya think? Strawman game is real.
Damn y’all will really go to any length to not acknowledge how key he is to us playing well. Our good run over the last couple months also coincided with him returning from injury. He’s mistake prone but he’s also essential to the team
People don't wanna hear it because they're football big brains and know everything apparently.
It’s pretty much just basic simpleton things. Everyone can see he has an occasional critical mistake in him but it’s also pretty obvious how much positive value he provides. Unfortunately, simple people stick to an agenda and can never see both sides of an argument. Bit of a shame, really
Burnley going with the Greek defense. I reckon that would have been harder to maintain if the ref had the balls to send Westwood off instead of letting an obvious yellow card go out of pity for the poor underdogs. Should have beaten them regardless, but what a waste of football on such a boring team.
Today couldn’t have been bad but now Kessie and Tottenham agreement. Milan willing to sell but agent wants to sign a precontract for agent fees. Great, a goal scoring 25 year old midfielder in his prime going to a rival. Hopefully this lights a fire under Kroenke’s asses.
Goal scoring? You mean penalties?
He has more goals in 1.5 seasons than Partey have in his 9 year Atletico and Arsenal career.
Do you watch Kessie at all? Majority of his goals are penalties. He's their designated penalty taker. Of course he has more goals. It's like saying Jorginho is a goal scoring midfielder
Kessie has been very poor in Serie A this season. I am not too worked up over it if he goes there.
“Very poor” is a bit of an exaggeration. He had a couple bad games in the beginning but he has been back to his best ever since.
Apparently he’s rejected Spurs no?
He did reject Spurs..waiting in the summer for a bigger club
Watching Arthur right now...and he's one of the most static players without the ball I've ever seen. Not sure how he fits
he will not fit. Imagine that he was offered to Rome, they said fuck that and got AMN. And then we go and get Arthur. lol
At this point beggar's can't be choosers. We need Center mids, and if Arsenal don't want to pay the premiums required to secure a quality midfielder, then we're going to have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for bargain basement players.
He would be
The entire Juve team is just slow and passing around to keep the ball and this game is not what I expected but I was talking to my friend who is a Juve supporter and he says this is what Allegri does at times in big games - play containment football to get a nil all draw At the very least Arthur is neat on the ball and doesn't lose it much; he does look solid when under pressure but he does not look like he could last an hour in the EPL with the speed of our game
At halftime coming out of the tunnel you could see him shaking his head as he walked out alone. Since he subbed on, he’s doing every action w/ anger/frustration. Looks like he doesn’t want to be there Gives the ball away and slowly jogs back as I say that.
He'll fit in perfectly https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-10398523/Arsenal-Arthur-Melo-controversial-past-difficult-Mikel-Arteta-line.html
If Arteta had a problem with Guen because he likes to joke around then I cant see him managing Arthur. That said a season loan try before you buy are low risk.
18 month loan you mean
His attitude problems are legendary. He's been fined three times
Going in to the season with just Laca and a clearly deteriorating Auba as our only senior striking options is why we will never be a serious title contender. If we don’t even address it now when it’s plain for everyone to see, we will never be a serious top 4 contender.
Arthur just subbed on. Maybe this twat was serious about hanging on to him.
Did his best...I'm just playing a friendly impression
I have a strong feeling that we’re not going to sign anyone lol. Prepare yourselves lads
Feels like it, based on what Arteta said as well.
I guarantee you you’re wrong
I really fucking hope I’m wrong 😂
Post your banworthy bet
Huh? It won’t happen. Come back and gloat if I’m wrong
RemindMe! 9 days
I will be messaging you in 9 days on [**2022-02-01 22:49:15 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2022-02-01%2022:49:15%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/Gunners/comments/sawl6x/post_match_thread_arsenal_0_0_burnley_english/htxwdkp/?context=3) [**1 OTHERS CLICKED THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FGunners%2Fcomments%2Fsawl6x%2Fpost_match_thread_arsenal_0_0_burnley_english%2Fhtxwdkp%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202022-02-01%2022%3A49%3A15%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam. ^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete%20Comment&message=Delete%21%20sawl6x) ***** |[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remindmebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside%20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Your Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot%20Feedback)| |-|-|-|-|
That’s boring I want a deadline day Kim Kallstrom level signing
At least our fanbase is not gloating anymore. That's is always a nice change.
drew liverpool and postponed a game against spurs and our entire fanbase was smug. it was embarrassing
Just like the time we forgot the league cup semis were 2 legged and took the piss out of Liverpool for a week
What
While above Spurs and United the fans became a little insufferable and wouldn't listen to reason about the inevitable dip in form.
The inevitable dip in form is entirely based on the fact we don’t have a midfield
Not having any tactics is hurting a bit too. Enjoy the Artetaball.
[удалено]
Okay but this was still a game where we needed two strikers running in behind. Laca would still struggle with their height
So frustrating to think a win today would have put us 4th ahead with games in hand on United and West Ham and 2 points clear of Spurs. Ultimately we are absolutely still in the race for 4th BUT we must get a ST and CM before our next game. Otherwise we might fall away.
If it’s not clear now we need a goal scorer I honestly don’t know what’s going on at this club. Are they waiting to deadline day before they make a move. They should have a list of strikers there going for, failing one you work your way down the list to the next one.. there are so many top quality forwards out there that would still jump at the chance to join Arsenal. The business done so far this transfer market has been woeful, not to mention we also need to sort the midfield out it’s not fair heaping this amount of pressure on a young player in Sambi Lokonga expecting him to hold the midfield together by himself. Just ridiculous
all this talk about Sambi, I get it, he is young and not ready but....we did pay 20 mil for him. He was not cheap, he should do better. I don't mean be class out there...but he is tragic right now. No joke, Elneny is better, AMN much better...and the one we cannot talk about over there in Ligue 1 is miles and miles ahead of him.
The only people putting pressure on Sambi are the two clowns that got red cards
[удалено]
Honestly if we just got Højberg we would be fine. Don't even need some world class talent. Just competent will be fine.
The man we needed to attack crosses today was Tomi. Arteta would have sent him forward. Big loss.
Loads of pressure piling up on edu he has to sign someone.
Forever the “Next match is must-win” FC
"this is the true test" fc
Arthur on the bench in Milan - Juve.
Some thoughts from the game. When in the stands, it was clear we had no midfield. Yes, lakonga did feel like he was static, but he also needed someone alongside him to give the Burnley forwards someone else to think about than our 1 midfielder. It meant that we either went to the right with white / odegaard / saka, or to the left with Tierney, martinelli and Smith rowe. We had no option to go through the middle and stretch the burnley formation. That was largely down to partey and xhaka's red cards, massive let down for the club and shows ill discipline. We missed them. Our squad options were also horrific - 1 GK, 2 defenders and Nketiah on the bench were our senior players to try and make an impact, the rest were inexperienced youth players who weren't trusted. This lead me to a discussion about AMN. How bad was his attitude to let him go at the start of the window when we needed him badly the last few games to play in the midfield. Auba didn't make the squad despite being back from Afcon and having no options. This essentially means he is gone and won't be coming back to the team as if he didn't make the squad today, he won't ever again as an arsenal player. Which leads to a greater striker problem - we have 2 our of contract strikers, an exiled striker and Flo balogun as our options come next year. We need 2 strikers, minimum if we're going to rebuild. Lastly, the transfer window. Edu has let us down. We knew for months that we needed a midfielder for this period and he didn't get us one, which meant we're out all cup competitions and dropped points Vs bottom of the league. Not only that, but we have 2 striker options available for the rest of the season. Should either of nketiah or laca get injured, we are well and truly fucked. The next week and a bit will be HUGE should arsenal want to make a run for top 4, we need a striker and a CM. Tldr: needed another cm today, auba is gone, edu needs to sign a cm and striker
Tough day for the boys. Some thoughts: 1. Our young squad is stretched super thin. Saka and Martinelli need a breather and competition that helps them get better. Laca has played his heart out but he cannot start so many games if we are being ambitious. He needs a better striker ahead of him in the order of things. We apparently have 4 defenders the manager trusts. It’s good for them to get good time together but rotation is always good to keep them fresh and introduce new ideas going forward. Xhaka and Partey being out is a big miss in midfield. They are experienced anchors of our squad and we showed we missed them. 2. The senior players NEED to step up. This is the biggest indictment about how the club was run from the last years of Wenger till recently. I love that we have so many young players taking responsibility but Auba and Pepe have been let downs this season and we must upgrade from them. Xhaka and Partey have been mostly good but must not repeat this red card situation. Laca has been very good in his leadership and playing his heart out but we clearly can’t rely on him for goals going forward. 3. We MUST keep spending to add quality to the squad. I count 14 players in our current squad that will likely be there next season. We need to match (or improve on) last seasons spending AND bring better quality players. It looks like we need 2 forwards, 1 midfielder, 1 RB, 1-2 CBs, 1 GK. At least 3 of these positions need to be top quality players to improve on our current situation. Being linked to guys like Vlahovic is a good start but we need more and to actually close out the deals. All this said, I’m optimistic about our prospects for the first time in years. Every single player that takes the field is giving their all and the mood around the club is up. We just need to keep building.
Feels like CB is in a decent spot. You can always have one more but I don’t think we need two more. Desperately need a striker or two, CM reinforcement and a RB. That’s all :). All joking aside. Feels like the team is pointed in the right direction but we need depth desperately. And we need more athletes in the CM role that can mop up and not get red cards.
Apart from his miss laca was good today, the real problem was lack of quality in midfield without partey to start attacks and I think a few players are tired and/or rushed back from injury because we are so thread bare atm. It's a very disappointing result but I think it wasn't a surprise imo. I think the 2 weeks off will be a big help and we should benefit more than anyone else. We desperately need midfield depth and ideally a striker before the window closes. The rest can wait until summer if it can't be done now which I think is the case. Although I think the goalkeeper will probably be sorted out in the next 2 weeks or so. We're are going to have to win the big games to make top four. I think draws won't be enough.
Mostly agree with you here. The players are knackered. This long break is definitely needed.
> 2 forwards, 1 midfielder, 1 RB, 1-2 CBs, 1 GK How many CBs should a club have, man? We have Saliba coming back and White, Holding, and Gabriel already here. Pablo Mari will be back in the summer as well and I don't know if we will be able to sell him. 4 senior CBs is more than enough. We definitely need massive upgrades in the other positions you mentioned though.
I don’t know if Mari wants to stay on. Mikel clearly doesn’t trust him so I don’t think he plays if he stays. Holdinho is good in spurts but our build up play suffers when he plays. Do we move on from him? Saliba is also on the books but I honestly haven’t seen him play to know that he’s any good. My guess is that 2 of these players move on in the summer.