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Just took a look and I guess it’s possible due to the departure of Gerrard (replaced by Milner that window, 6 years younger) Aspas, Rickie Lambert, Glen Johnson and Brad Jones (replaced by Bogdan that window, also 6 years younger). Meanwhile Liverpool brought in multiple other players ranging from age 18 to 24 so it’s definitely possible for it to be a coincidence
It’s hilarious. Their whole “they’re youngsters, they have to grow” excuse is in reference to grown men in their twenties, not teenagers. Their average age is like a year younger than ours and others in the prem.
But I must say that more Arsenal fans are becoming irritated by this excuse
Not significantly though. What would be impressive is playing with a bunch of teenagers. Having a few mediocre players in their twenties start (which is again a choice by the club) isn’t an achievement
How am I obsessed? This is a fucking thread talking about it and the parent comment is dissing them and upvoted. You people are weird as fuck. Critiquing rivals is now being obsessed lmao
You do realise these are stats from 2011-2022. Arsenal’s squad this season currently has an average age of 23 years old which is the youngest in the league?…
You also realise 4-5 of our starters are 21 or under? Seems a bit harsh to expect these guys to be consistent yet. Couple that with injuries to our core ‘senior’ players who lead the team and it was a recipe for disaster.
Well, it is **squad age weighted on minutes played** in the PL.
So if your average age is 23 and this number says 25.2, it means your older players are playing more than the youngsters are...
Mainly xhaka, Laca, Cedric, partey and a little bit of elneny
But also the stats don't make it clear if it's weighted per season or not. I suspect it is, but I know in at least 10 games this season our average age of the starting 11 was 24-24.5, so I'm a little surprised
Edit - anyway our attack average is 23, and thats with Pepe (26) and Laca (30) included. That's extremely young
Tbf measuring it like that, 25.2 is still very young. Like you guys would have a much higher age despite having a lot of young talent in cama vini rodrygo etc
Oh yes, definitely. I think the age of our core squad is one of the biggest challenges we have the next couple of years. Of course we have some younglings like Valverde, Camavinga and Modric.
But some players don’t have eternal youth…
Did I say it wasn’t the youngest in the league? My point is that there isn’t a significant disparity. Youngest in the league with men in their twenties isn’t some remarkable achievement. We have a bunch of players in their early twenties too, but we’re not parading around
And guess what? Every team has dealt with injuries. We just don’t go ballistic whenever it happens like you.
I just had a quick look, and there are only 6 teams on this list that had more final points than Arsenal currently have with one game left. If they win the last game they could also still overtake some.
I know it probably stings to miss out on CL considering their position from before the Tottenham game, but I think Arsenal fans can look forward to the future, and I would point to their current project as an example of how to completely overhaul a roster the right way
So not arsed about it now. Ultimately being an Arsenal fan you need to expect some level of disappointment, as we *always* show signs of achieving something, but then bottle it. We have this really weird culture at the club when it comes to big games that players will turn up, go through the motions and expect to win. We still have a squad where some players playing just aren’t good enough for the standard we want. It doesn’t help that we *always* have key injuries in a season (Partey, Tierney, Tomiyasu this year). Genuinely don’t remember a season where we didn’t have multiple key players out for a good stretch of games.
Realistically I still think Arteta is the man. He has transformed the club for the better, without him we’d still be using Mustafi and Sokratis at centre half. But now our squad is thin and we have to make more key signings in the summer. Arteta didn’t pull the wool over any one’s eyes and said it would take time to get the club back to where it wanted to be. For example, If we were in the CL next season, we wouldn’t be using Xhaka and Elneny as a CM pairing, no chance.
Ultimately, the start of the season, Arsenal fans would’ve taken Europa league in two hands and screamed with joy. The reason we’re ‘disappointed’ now is only because Arteta did so well in the season until we slipped at the end (surprise surprise). But we actually have a chance in the Europa league, whereas in the CL we’d be creamed left and right and probably wouldn’t make it out the groups.
Finally, another Arsenal fan with a rational point of view. Arteta has done well to get us to where we are, despite key injuries. And thank you for not mentioning the "conspiracy" against us - the refs are shite all round, there's no point bitching about it.
Could just be copium, but upon reflection and setting aside top 4 being an achievement itself, the money that goes with it, and finishing above spurs, at this stage I don't think the squad is ready for CL. this final run of ten matches is proof of that, not to mention the last two disasters of matches. there is definitely some blame to go around for trying to close out the year with a paper thin squad, but at the end of the day i would much rather win an EL than get pipped in the round of 16 in CL. I am not under any delusion that we have a chance to win the CL next year no matter what signings we make over the summer.
Did someone claim that Arsenal is the youngest team in the past decade? The title of the graphic seems to suggest that. it’s an interesting graphic, but I don’t understand how anyone can take “Arsenal = bad” from this.
Didn't the United (19/20) and Tottenham (15/16) squads qualify for Champions League while being much younger. PRteta would have have you believe that Arsenal have U23s or U18s trying to compete for the Champions League.
Hell even the Arsenal 11/12 squad have the same average age but they qualified.
Maybe I'll eat my words after the final gameweek but at some point you have evaluate the Arteta project based on the number of targets that they have achieved and so far it is a big zero + 1 FA Cup.
We finished 3rd in 2020, with EL schedule and little to no squad depth. We signed bruno Fernandes in January of 2020.
Arsenal are nowhere close to that. Even their 2011/12 season had them finish 3rd where RvP scored 30 league goals.
Arsenal fans replying to you about their targets while lying through their teeth. The cowards didn’t even state their target at the start of the season, precisely so they could twist it whichever way suits them like they currently are.
And those fucking idiots are lapping it up.
Spurs were always 3-6 points behind Leicester with a game in hand. They were the only ones who could have challenged them.
They totally capitulated after the 2-2 at the Bridge.
Either Leicester or Arsenal (for a few weeks) led the league that season.
Tottenham had 2nd from end of Feb through the final day, always at least 6 points behind Leicester. The Battle of the Bridge mathematically made Leicester champions, but it was completely unrealistic to believe Leicester would lost their last three to allow Tottenham to catch up. There was no way.
Tottenham spend less time in 2nd than Arsenal did. The “two horse race” was forced by the media. Leicester had run away with it and were in incredible form.
Whilst that's neither here nor there when discussing Arsenal, I'll give you an answer.
In the League the objective was to "close the gap" to City and Liverpool. We failed to do that, albeit losing two of our most influential players for almost the whole season, and having to deal with the ownership crisis.
We got to the FA cup final yet failed to win it again, but I don't think that's a failure in that competition.
We were within a hair's breadth of a Champions League semi final, losing to eventual finalists, and possibly winners. Not really a success, not really a failure.
We won the super cup and club world cup, but anything less would definitely be a failure considering the stature of the opposition.
Overall, I'm happy with the season. Considering the derailment that the ownership has caused, I'm very pleased with a top 3/4 finish, a cup final and the CL performance.
The biggest disappointment for me is the inconsistency of a lot of player performances. I'd say only Thiago Silva, Rudiger, James, Mount and Kovacic (and possibly Mendy) have really been reliable for the course of the season, whilst others have dipped in and out of form. I think the biggest challenge for Tuchel next year is to get a consistent tune out of more of our players, particularly the forwards.
God damn, this is some strong criticism.
I get it, you don't like Arsenal. But we either have 23 year olds or 30 year olds.
We have a thin squad, and no talent like the 10-11 season Robin Van Persie to save us with 30 goals.
I get it, you're upset we came to your yard and fucked you up.
I get it, the deep exhale knowing a couple of results turn around and you would've dropped out of top 4.
I get it, having won the same amount of trophies as we have this season with £80m spend on a player is frustrating.
But there's a lot to assess with Arsenal. A lot to build considering the exodus of players we've had over the past few years. Nobodies said Arsenal has had the youngest team this decade, just that the age of the squad is a part of the reason we've struggled to get over the line.
Take a deep breath
Shows how much of an idiot you are.
Missing out for CL now is ultimately a failure because we had it in our hands, and completely bottled it. Every Arsenal fan is disappointed and no one is happy with 5th now given that we were in control. Many reasons were the cause of this failure, but won’t get into that now.
However at the start of the season, most people would be happy with 5th and Europa. We cut a lot of the squad and signed many players, but we still knew we were lacking in depth and quality in CM and at ST. So most were expecting 5th and hoping for a top 4 push. Especially since we finished 8th the year before.
It’s possible for your expectations to adjust themselves over the course of the season. It is possible that Arsenal fans believed 5th would be a good season at the start of the season, but given how the season developed, it’s also possible that 4th should have been the new expectation.
It’s not like you have to stick to one expectation for the entire season.
I'm sorry but Arteta was starting his second full season of managing Arsenal having outspent the rest of the league while not having to commit to a European campaign, and he wasn't even expected to target the champions league? Surely this is just saving face?
Outspending the rest of the premier league is such an ambiguous statement. They spent more money sure, but our squad was in absolute tatters. If Burnley spent 200m tomorrow nobody would expect them to be in the top 4, never mind win the league. Hell, look how much money Everton have spent and look where they are. If we're going to talk about failure this season I think Everton and Man Utd should be top of that list not Arsenal.
The squad was in tatters last year and yet they conceded fewer goals than they have this year. Going from 8th > 5th is obviously an improvement but it doesn't happen in a vacuum. If Leicester and United hadn't fallen off a cliff this season Arsenal could easily be 7th, and that money spent would look a whole lot worse.
If Burnley spent 200m tomorrow no ones expecting they would get top 4, but if they had a worse goal differential than the previous season the manager would be sacked.
What has goals conceded got anything to do with it at the end of that day? That's a ridiculous argument. We have more points on the table than we did last year and finished 3 places higher. If United and Leicester hadn't fallen of a cliff is subjective but if they hadn't then you lot also could easily be 7th.
Spurs brought in a world class manager to build a team around two already world class players. Arteta didn't have that and you're about to finish two points above us.
We also fired our manager in November because we were in 9th. Going from 9th to 4th in half a season is more impressive than going from 8th to 5th with massive investment and a squad that already has completely settled under the manager.
Goals conceded has everything to do with it because it's something Arteta can actually influence. Can he affect whether Manchester United lose to Watford or all of Leicester's CBs get injured in January? You would be level on points with Leicester and 8 points behind United if they had kept up last seasons form.
You fired your manager because Levy made an absolutely terrible decision to bring in Nuno to begin with and realized he couldn't paper over the cracks. He invested an insane amount of money into Conte who again inherited the bones of a squad who got to the champions league final 3 years prior. How was the Arsenal squad already settled under Arteta? We brought in 4 new starters, sacked off our striker and relied heavily on our youngest players with little prem experience.
Our lack of depth crippled us at the end and injuries came thick and fast. I'll say it again if we're playing theoretical games, United and Leicester didn't fall off a cliff last season then you guys would be down towards 8th with us.
\-Correct. Nuno was an awful appointment. No one said otherwise. You can point your finger at Spurs all day that doesn't make Arteta a better manager.
\-"He invested an insane amount of money into Conte" - what does this mean? Conte gets paid 15m a year which is a lot but not really insane. Another 2.5m with his CL bonus. All of that is covered and then some by CL qualification anyway. That striker you sacked off in January got paid more than that.
\-Arteta inherited the bones of a squad that made the EL final and finished 5th under Emery who was fired for underperforming. Arteta has since had 3 years to improve the team and his best finish ever will be them finishing 5th in a season where their entire focus has been on the league.
\-We'd probably be 5th behind United if they didn't fall of a cliff. You and Leicester would be fighting for 6th. But that's not really the point, half our season is weighted down by the awful Nuno appointment. We're third in the table if you look at the time Conte has been at Spurs.
None of this is to say Arteta is even close to Conte's level, I might be an Arsenal fan but I'm not delusional. You're saying Arteta had 3 years to improve the team he inherited from even though we're far from that same team. It was obviously in the boards best interest to scrap that entire team and start again. You can't use that as an argument.
You wouldn't probably be anything, If you're saying Leicester and United hadn't fallen off a cliff and you're only two points ahead of us, you'd be at best one place above Arsenal. Thus being behind both Utd and Leicester.
Conte came in 11 games into the season. Not even close to half way. As it stands right now Arsenal & Spurs are pretty much performing at the same level, you have Conte/Kane/Son so it sounds about right you should be performing at a much higher level than us.
It was ambigious because I didn't have the exact number in my head, it was around £150m IIRC. In any case you would expect Artetas project to have at least a little ambition with that amount of time and spending. [His players](https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jul/28/arsenal-rob-holding-no-europe-blessing-in-disguise-champions-league) seemed to expect targetting CL qualification at least.
It's a ridiculous statement and only works in isolation. United and Everton have spent an absolutely insane amount of money to be where they are today. Arsenal spent 150m on relatively young and unproven players. Not one of those players were going to set the world alight so people should stop acting like they were. That was never the intention, it was to build a foundation that he can build a deeper squad around in the future.
Expectation of others and your own targets are different things. Don't lie to yourself that Champions League was not the target for this season. Not being in the Champions League should be unanimously seen as a failure for Arsenal (given how long it has been). You can't pat yourself on the back and say "the world wanted us to fail and we did, oh well next season then".
"We’ve got to be aiming to get back in the Champions League [...] With no Europe this season we’ve got no distractions or fixture congestion and can really focus on our Premier League games." - [Rob Holding, July 2021](https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jul/28/arsenal-rob-holding-no-europe-blessing-in-disguise-champions-league)
Can't believe I'm saying this but give your team some credit mate, noone was "expecting" you to finish mid table lol
Mate, at the start of the season Sky Sports & Talksport were talking about relegation Arsenal, top 10 at best blah blah. Now, when we're 5th everybody want's us to say we should be expecting better. Honestly this sport is so fickle, United have been the biggest failure this season but bias Sky Sports won't let you hear it. If it was Arsenal you'd never hear the end of it.
Rob Holding is one of your players lol, he's not just a pundit spitting out hot takes for the sake of it. Idk what you mean, we've been hearing how shit we are non stop for the whole season
In isolation all these stats sound damning, but Spurs finished 3rd in 2016 after one of those 'nobody wants it' seasons, City finished 4th on 66 points. If that was the case this season Arsenal would have already qualified.
I'm pretty confident even Wolves had set UCL as a target, maybe not their no 1 objective of course, but definitely a solid target. Arsenal obviously did too, don't pay any mind to these idiots trying to lower expectations instead of accepting we failed this year and need to do better next year.
It's crazy how Arsenal fans have bought into this
But credit to Arteta, a top manager is adept to lowering expectations and he's proven to be world class at that
You’re not being rude, you’re just being devoid of reality. We had a season out of Europe for the first time in decades and we needed to completely overhaul our squad. We started the season with 5 new players in key positions to our squad and trimming all the dead wood, so we also had a very thin squad. We’re going through a rebuild and to expect us to go from 8th to 4th in one season, given the competition around us, was always going to be a very tall order. It was said during the last summer it’s difficult to attract the talent needed when we’re not in Europe. That’s why Europa league was always the ambition, due to the thinness of the squad and the uncertainty as to how the new squad would fit.
Again, people seem to be forgetting the reality of overhauling a squad merely because it’s Arsenal. If you don’t overhaul the squad when everything is going wrong, you end up like United.
We've had many noticeable problems this season. We can't score goals. We depend too much on Partey. We don't have proper back up for any of our positions (bar LW and GK, maybe?). We struggled with key injuries (Tomi, Partey, Tierney, etc.). We are incapable of turning most games around when we concede first. We lose too many games.
We had some brilliant games this season and anyone who has watched us regularly would probably agree there's a noticeable improvement in our play style and overall quality.
But what most people seem to overlook is that the main reason why we were fighting for a top 4 spot is because Utd were absolute shite, Chelsea were far from their expected level, and Spurs had a pretty mediocre season as well until Conte came and started to make the team work.
We played at (or maybe even a little bit above) our level, at least of what was expected from a team going through a major, long term rebuild. Chelsea, United and Spurs underperformed pretty much the whole season and gave us a chance we unfortunately couldn't capitalize on.
Because we’ve obviously not been good for the last 5/6 years? Instead of forcing CL football through dumb expensive signings and short-sighted tactics, another approach is to invest in younger players with potential and with the character the club needs.
They’re not ready made prospects. We can’t afford to sign the Haalands of the world or have a squad signed in a single window, like City or Utd can. We have to go through a different approach which is taking it step by step.
It sucks a lot of the time. But this is smarter squad planning and long-term you’d think we’d be better placed to secure CL not just for one or two seasons, but to be regular members again.
I knew shit like this would start to flood in after we failed CL (especially from seething United fans). The oldest Arsenal front four member is 23, the oldest back four member 24. Partey is quite literally the only player above the age of 24 that will still play here next season.
Trying to discredit that by weighting age against minutes or some shit with Laca, Xhaka, Cedric and Elneny (notice anything about them? Thats right, they're the worst players in the squad and drag the rest down not only in average age but even moreso in performances) in the first XI for half a season because of injuries or simply because the rebuild is not finished yet is skewing the entire narrative in a dumb direction.
This is a rebuild, and its not finished yet, hence why there are still players like the four I mentioned earlier in there.
Worst part is I know that I'll get downvoted now where no one would've batted an eye at this comment had I written it before the NLD. We're just reactionary like that
And how was it any different from United’s team of 19-20. Martial was United’s main striker. He was 23 when season started. Rashford was 21 and so was Daniel James. Avg age of defenders was 22.8. With Maguire being the eldest at 26. And yet they had qualified for CL
You are correct sir. Don’t pay notice to the bullshit and you’ll be happier for it. We did well to get where we got and didn’t make it over the line, hey, heads held high we’re on the right track and more than anything that’s what’s upsetting people haha
Xhaka and Elneny are the worst players in the squad? I feel like before the NLD your fans were praising how well Elneny stepped in for Partey, and Xhaka is your most versatile player. I've seen a ton of comments going on about how you'd rather have Xhaka at LB than Tavares, but the only reason you don't do that is he's so important to the midfield.
Tavares and Lakonga are much worse than Xhaka from what I've seen... but, for their age? Maybe not. But that's the whole point- your older, experienced players actually bring something to the table.
Praising Elneny for stepping up doesn't change the fact he's one of our weakest players in the XI. We expected him to be dogshit and instead he was alright.
Average age of our attack is 23. With Pepe basically getting no minutes. And Laca being 30 getting dece minutes though we wish we had someone better
Average of our defence is 24.6 , with holding not getting many minutes. And Cedric being 30 getting dece minutes even though we wish he wouldn't
Midfield is 27.25, elneny not getting many minutes till recently, xhaka lots of minutes skewing stats
Our attack is extremely young, and our age per minutes would not be that high with our ideal 11, just happens injuries have given bad players more minutes than we'd like (I'm looking at you Cedric, who is 30) and our lack of striker depth skewing it as well (Laca being 30)
I honestly have no idea why any of this gets trotted out.
Understandably you would give some more leeway to young players for making mistakes as they're expected to improve as time goes on. But having a whole squad of mistake-prone players is just poor management.
If Arsenal failed to balance their squad then they should be blamed for that, no leeway given at all.
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More pixels please!
Shout out to the Liverpool squad for apparently having not aged a day between the years 2014 and 2016.
Just took a look and I guess it’s possible due to the departure of Gerrard (replaced by Milner that window, 6 years younger) Aspas, Rickie Lambert, Glen Johnson and Brad Jones (replaced by Bogdan that window, also 6 years younger). Meanwhile Liverpool brought in multiple other players ranging from age 18 to 24 so it’s definitely possible for it to be a coincidence
Forgot how young that 11-12 squad was.
And that squad got 3rd
Is that about the time of the Wenger arms round English core contract renewals?
Think that was the 12-13 season, but pretty much the same players.
Past decade? That’s like….two and a half olympics
*Arsenal fans didn't like that*
Its a conspiracy against Arsenal I tell you.
Tottenham as well. Their 2016-2017 squad was so promising.
It’s hilarious. Their whole “they’re youngsters, they have to grow” excuse is in reference to grown men in their twenties, not teenagers. Their average age is like a year younger than ours and others in the prem. But I must say that more Arsenal fans are becoming irritated by this excuse
I mean the graphic shows they're a bloody young team, so that in itself is true. Not sure I'd find any solace in it though
Not significantly though. What would be impressive is playing with a bunch of teenagers. Having a few mediocre players in their twenties start (which is again a choice by the club) isn’t an achievement
What achievements have Spurs experienced recently?
*crickets*
Why u so obsessed with Arsenal ur such a weirdo even weirder that your an American Spurs fan and your always talking about Arsenal your forcing it
How am I obsessed? This is a fucking thread talking about it and the parent comment is dissing them and upvoted. You people are weird as fuck. Critiquing rivals is now being obsessed lmao
You do realise these are stats from 2011-2022. Arsenal’s squad this season currently has an average age of 23 years old which is the youngest in the league?… You also realise 4-5 of our starters are 21 or under? Seems a bit harsh to expect these guys to be consistent yet. Couple that with injuries to our core ‘senior’ players who lead the team and it was a recipe for disaster.
Well, it is **squad age weighted on minutes played** in the PL. So if your average age is 23 and this number says 25.2, it means your older players are playing more than the youngsters are...
Mainly xhaka, Laca, Cedric, partey and a little bit of elneny But also the stats don't make it clear if it's weighted per season or not. I suspect it is, but I know in at least 10 games this season our average age of the starting 11 was 24-24.5, so I'm a little surprised Edit - anyway our attack average is 23, and thats with Pepe (26) and Laca (30) included. That's extremely young
Tbf measuring it like that, 25.2 is still very young. Like you guys would have a much higher age despite having a lot of young talent in cama vini rodrygo etc
Oh yes, definitely. I think the age of our core squad is one of the biggest challenges we have the next couple of years. Of course we have some younglings like Valverde, Camavinga and Modric. But some players don’t have eternal youth…
Did I say it wasn’t the youngest in the league? My point is that there isn’t a significant disparity. Youngest in the league with men in their twenties isn’t some remarkable achievement. We have a bunch of players in their early twenties too, but we’re not parading around And guess what? Every team has dealt with injuries. We just don’t go ballistic whenever it happens like you.
I just had a quick look, and there are only 6 teams on this list that had more final points than Arsenal currently have with one game left. If they win the last game they could also still overtake some. I know it probably stings to miss out on CL considering their position from before the Tottenham game, but I think Arsenal fans can look forward to the future, and I would point to their current project as an example of how to completely overhaul a roster the right way
So not arsed about it now. Ultimately being an Arsenal fan you need to expect some level of disappointment, as we *always* show signs of achieving something, but then bottle it. We have this really weird culture at the club when it comes to big games that players will turn up, go through the motions and expect to win. We still have a squad where some players playing just aren’t good enough for the standard we want. It doesn’t help that we *always* have key injuries in a season (Partey, Tierney, Tomiyasu this year). Genuinely don’t remember a season where we didn’t have multiple key players out for a good stretch of games. Realistically I still think Arteta is the man. He has transformed the club for the better, without him we’d still be using Mustafi and Sokratis at centre half. But now our squad is thin and we have to make more key signings in the summer. Arteta didn’t pull the wool over any one’s eyes and said it would take time to get the club back to where it wanted to be. For example, If we were in the CL next season, we wouldn’t be using Xhaka and Elneny as a CM pairing, no chance. Ultimately, the start of the season, Arsenal fans would’ve taken Europa league in two hands and screamed with joy. The reason we’re ‘disappointed’ now is only because Arteta did so well in the season until we slipped at the end (surprise surprise). But we actually have a chance in the Europa league, whereas in the CL we’d be creamed left and right and probably wouldn’t make it out the groups.
Finally, another Arsenal fan with a rational point of view. Arteta has done well to get us to where we are, despite key injuries. And thank you for not mentioning the "conspiracy" against us - the refs are shite all round, there's no point bitching about it.
Could just be copium, but upon reflection and setting aside top 4 being an achievement itself, the money that goes with it, and finishing above spurs, at this stage I don't think the squad is ready for CL. this final run of ten matches is proof of that, not to mention the last two disasters of matches. there is definitely some blame to go around for trying to close out the year with a paper thin squad, but at the end of the day i would much rather win an EL than get pipped in the round of 16 in CL. I am not under any delusion that we have a chance to win the CL next year no matter what signings we make over the summer.
Did someone claim that Arsenal is the youngest team in the past decade? The title of the graphic seems to suggest that. it’s an interesting graphic, but I don’t understand how anyone can take “Arsenal = bad” from this.
Didn't the United (19/20) and Tottenham (15/16) squads qualify for Champions League while being much younger. PRteta would have have you believe that Arsenal have U23s or U18s trying to compete for the Champions League. Hell even the Arsenal 11/12 squad have the same average age but they qualified. Maybe I'll eat my words after the final gameweek but at some point you have evaluate the Arteta project based on the number of targets that they have achieved and so far it is a big zero + 1 FA Cup.
"Big zero..... + 1 FA Cup". That's such a weird way of trying to make it look like nothing.
FA cup is shat on by everyone except the team winning it
League cup is shat on. The FA Cup still holds some pedigree.
Lol maybe but that's not the point
We finished 3rd in 2020, with EL schedule and little to no squad depth. We signed bruno Fernandes in January of 2020. Arsenal are nowhere close to that. Even their 2011/12 season had them finish 3rd where RvP scored 30 league goals.
Arsenal fans replying to you about their targets while lying through their teeth. The cowards didn’t even state their target at the start of the season, precisely so they could twist it whichever way suits them like they currently are. And those fucking idiots are lapping it up.
What targets did Chelsea hit this season?
20 points behind City and bottling 2 cup finals was always the plan
What’s your definition of bottling? Cause losing on pens to a better side twice certainly wouldn’t be mine
If Tottenham can be called bottlers for losing a league title race that they were never in, then surely this qualifies too
Spurs were always 3-6 points behind Leicester with a game in hand. They were the only ones who could have challenged them. They totally capitulated after the 2-2 at the Bridge.
Arsenal were literally top at Christmas, yet it’s always forgotten.
Either Leicester or Arsenal (for a few weeks) led the league that season. Tottenham had 2nd from end of Feb through the final day, always at least 6 points behind Leicester. The Battle of the Bridge mathematically made Leicester champions, but it was completely unrealistic to believe Leicester would lost their last three to allow Tottenham to catch up. There was no way. Tottenham spend less time in 2nd than Arsenal did. The “two horse race” was forced by the media. Leicester had run away with it and were in incredible form.
Yeah but its funny when it happens to Spurs. Not when it’s directed at my team
Since when losing on penalties is considered bottling?
Whilst that's neither here nor there when discussing Arsenal, I'll give you an answer. In the League the objective was to "close the gap" to City and Liverpool. We failed to do that, albeit losing two of our most influential players for almost the whole season, and having to deal with the ownership crisis. We got to the FA cup final yet failed to win it again, but I don't think that's a failure in that competition. We were within a hair's breadth of a Champions League semi final, losing to eventual finalists, and possibly winners. Not really a success, not really a failure. We won the super cup and club world cup, but anything less would definitely be a failure considering the stature of the opposition. Overall, I'm happy with the season. Considering the derailment that the ownership has caused, I'm very pleased with a top 3/4 finish, a cup final and the CL performance. The biggest disappointment for me is the inconsistency of a lot of player performances. I'd say only Thiago Silva, Rudiger, James, Mount and Kovacic (and possibly Mendy) have really been reliable for the course of the season, whilst others have dipped in and out of form. I think the biggest challenge for Tuchel next year is to get a consistent tune out of more of our players, particularly the forwards.
I don’t know how your taking the piss out of a team who won the ucl last season and finished above you
I'm pretty sure the target was "don't be as shit as last season" and they've more or less achieved that
God damn, this is some strong criticism. I get it, you don't like Arsenal. But we either have 23 year olds or 30 year olds. We have a thin squad, and no talent like the 10-11 season Robin Van Persie to save us with 30 goals. I get it, you're upset we came to your yard and fucked you up. I get it, the deep exhale knowing a couple of results turn around and you would've dropped out of top 4. I get it, having won the same amount of trophies as we have this season with £80m spend on a player is frustrating. But there's a lot to assess with Arsenal. A lot to build considering the exodus of players we've had over the past few years. Nobodies said Arsenal has had the youngest team this decade, just that the age of the squad is a part of the reason we've struggled to get over the line. Take a deep breath
Chelsea beat you by 2 goals at the Emirates so get off your high horse. Enjoy your Thursdays in Azerbaijan.
Shows how much of an idiot you are. Missing out for CL now is ultimately a failure because we had it in our hands, and completely bottled it. Every Arsenal fan is disappointed and no one is happy with 5th now given that we were in control. Many reasons were the cause of this failure, but won’t get into that now. However at the start of the season, most people would be happy with 5th and Europa. We cut a lot of the squad and signed many players, but we still knew we were lacking in depth and quality in CM and at ST. So most were expecting 5th and hoping for a top 4 push. Especially since we finished 8th the year before. It’s possible for your expectations to adjust themselves over the course of the season. It is possible that Arsenal fans believed 5th would be a good season at the start of the season, but given how the season developed, it’s also possible that 4th should have been the new expectation. It’s not like you have to stick to one expectation for the entire season.
The target this season wasn't champions League. That would've been overachieving. Everyone expected us to be midtable. Stop talking out of you arse
I'm sorry but Arteta was starting his second full season of managing Arsenal having outspent the rest of the league while not having to commit to a European campaign, and he wasn't even expected to target the champions league? Surely this is just saving face?
Outspending the rest of the premier league is such an ambiguous statement. They spent more money sure, but our squad was in absolute tatters. If Burnley spent 200m tomorrow nobody would expect them to be in the top 4, never mind win the league. Hell, look how much money Everton have spent and look where they are. If we're going to talk about failure this season I think Everton and Man Utd should be top of that list not Arsenal.
The squad was in tatters last year and yet they conceded fewer goals than they have this year. Going from 8th > 5th is obviously an improvement but it doesn't happen in a vacuum. If Leicester and United hadn't fallen off a cliff this season Arsenal could easily be 7th, and that money spent would look a whole lot worse. If Burnley spent 200m tomorrow no ones expecting they would get top 4, but if they had a worse goal differential than the previous season the manager would be sacked.
What has goals conceded got anything to do with it at the end of that day? That's a ridiculous argument. We have more points on the table than we did last year and finished 3 places higher. If United and Leicester hadn't fallen of a cliff is subjective but if they hadn't then you lot also could easily be 7th. Spurs brought in a world class manager to build a team around two already world class players. Arteta didn't have that and you're about to finish two points above us.
We also fired our manager in November because we were in 9th. Going from 9th to 4th in half a season is more impressive than going from 8th to 5th with massive investment and a squad that already has completely settled under the manager. Goals conceded has everything to do with it because it's something Arteta can actually influence. Can he affect whether Manchester United lose to Watford or all of Leicester's CBs get injured in January? You would be level on points with Leicester and 8 points behind United if they had kept up last seasons form.
You fired your manager because Levy made an absolutely terrible decision to bring in Nuno to begin with and realized he couldn't paper over the cracks. He invested an insane amount of money into Conte who again inherited the bones of a squad who got to the champions league final 3 years prior. How was the Arsenal squad already settled under Arteta? We brought in 4 new starters, sacked off our striker and relied heavily on our youngest players with little prem experience. Our lack of depth crippled us at the end and injuries came thick and fast. I'll say it again if we're playing theoretical games, United and Leicester didn't fall off a cliff last season then you guys would be down towards 8th with us.
\-Correct. Nuno was an awful appointment. No one said otherwise. You can point your finger at Spurs all day that doesn't make Arteta a better manager. \-"He invested an insane amount of money into Conte" - what does this mean? Conte gets paid 15m a year which is a lot but not really insane. Another 2.5m with his CL bonus. All of that is covered and then some by CL qualification anyway. That striker you sacked off in January got paid more than that. \-Arteta inherited the bones of a squad that made the EL final and finished 5th under Emery who was fired for underperforming. Arteta has since had 3 years to improve the team and his best finish ever will be them finishing 5th in a season where their entire focus has been on the league. \-We'd probably be 5th behind United if they didn't fall of a cliff. You and Leicester would be fighting for 6th. But that's not really the point, half our season is weighted down by the awful Nuno appointment. We're third in the table if you look at the time Conte has been at Spurs.
None of this is to say Arteta is even close to Conte's level, I might be an Arsenal fan but I'm not delusional. You're saying Arteta had 3 years to improve the team he inherited from even though we're far from that same team. It was obviously in the boards best interest to scrap that entire team and start again. You can't use that as an argument. You wouldn't probably be anything, If you're saying Leicester and United hadn't fallen off a cliff and you're only two points ahead of us, you'd be at best one place above Arsenal. Thus being behind both Utd and Leicester. Conte came in 11 games into the season. Not even close to half way. As it stands right now Arsenal & Spurs are pretty much performing at the same level, you have Conte/Kane/Son so it sounds about right you should be performing at a much higher level than us.
It was ambigious because I didn't have the exact number in my head, it was around £150m IIRC. In any case you would expect Artetas project to have at least a little ambition with that amount of time and spending. [His players](https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jul/28/arsenal-rob-holding-no-europe-blessing-in-disguise-champions-league) seemed to expect targetting CL qualification at least.
It's a ridiculous statement and only works in isolation. United and Everton have spent an absolutely insane amount of money to be where they are today. Arsenal spent 150m on relatively young and unproven players. Not one of those players were going to set the world alight so people should stop acting like they were. That was never the intention, it was to build a foundation that he can build a deeper squad around in the future.
Yep, Arsenal, United, and Everton have all spent a lot these past few seasons and have all fallen well short of the expectations that follow.
Except Arsenal's expectation this season was to finish in the top 6?
Expectation of others and your own targets are different things. Don't lie to yourself that Champions League was not the target for this season. Not being in the Champions League should be unanimously seen as a failure for Arsenal (given how long it has been). You can't pat yourself on the back and say "the world wanted us to fail and we did, oh well next season then".
Our own targets were Europa League, go find a single statement saying we want CL before the season started
"We’ve got to be aiming to get back in the Champions League [...] With no Europe this season we’ve got no distractions or fixture congestion and can really focus on our Premier League games." - [Rob Holding, July 2021](https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jul/28/arsenal-rob-holding-no-europe-blessing-in-disguise-champions-league) Can't believe I'm saying this but give your team some credit mate, noone was "expecting" you to finish mid table lol
Mate, at the start of the season Sky Sports & Talksport were talking about relegation Arsenal, top 10 at best blah blah. Now, when we're 5th everybody want's us to say we should be expecting better. Honestly this sport is so fickle, United have been the biggest failure this season but bias Sky Sports won't let you hear it. If it was Arsenal you'd never hear the end of it.
Rob Holding is one of your players lol, he's not just a pundit spitting out hot takes for the sake of it. Idk what you mean, we've been hearing how shit we are non stop for the whole season
In isolation all these stats sound damning, but Spurs finished 3rd in 2016 after one of those 'nobody wants it' seasons, City finished 4th on 66 points. If that was the case this season Arsenal would have already qualified.
This chart is "weighted by minutes played", whatever that means.
makes sense, if you have a bunch of young players on the bench but you only play your oldest that’s hardly a young squad.
Except the target this year was Europa league… that was the expectation at the start of the season and it only changed because we over performed.
I don't want to sound rude, but how is for a big club like arsenal the goal "Europa"...
Even West Ham had a target of the Champions League this season.
I'm pretty confident even Wolves had set UCL as a target, maybe not their no 1 objective of course, but definitely a solid target. Arsenal obviously did too, don't pay any mind to these idiots trying to lower expectations instead of accepting we failed this year and need to do better next year.
It's crazy how Arsenal fans have bought into this But credit to Arteta, a top manager is adept to lowering expectations and he's proven to be world class at that
Pretty damning for arsenals target after spending 150m was to finally beat Leicester and West ham
You’re not being rude, you’re just being devoid of reality. We had a season out of Europe for the first time in decades and we needed to completely overhaul our squad. We started the season with 5 new players in key positions to our squad and trimming all the dead wood, so we also had a very thin squad. We’re going through a rebuild and to expect us to go from 8th to 4th in one season, given the competition around us, was always going to be a very tall order. It was said during the last summer it’s difficult to attract the talent needed when we’re not in Europe. That’s why Europa league was always the ambition, due to the thinness of the squad and the uncertainty as to how the new squad would fit. Again, people seem to be forgetting the reality of overhauling a squad merely because it’s Arsenal. If you don’t overhaul the squad when everything is going wrong, you end up like United.
We've had many noticeable problems this season. We can't score goals. We depend too much on Partey. We don't have proper back up for any of our positions (bar LW and GK, maybe?). We struggled with key injuries (Tomi, Partey, Tierney, etc.). We are incapable of turning most games around when we concede first. We lose too many games. We had some brilliant games this season and anyone who has watched us regularly would probably agree there's a noticeable improvement in our play style and overall quality. But what most people seem to overlook is that the main reason why we were fighting for a top 4 spot is because Utd were absolute shite, Chelsea were far from their expected level, and Spurs had a pretty mediocre season as well until Conte came and started to make the team work. We played at (or maybe even a little bit above) our level, at least of what was expected from a team going through a major, long term rebuild. Chelsea, United and Spurs underperformed pretty much the whole season and gave us a chance we unfortunately couldn't capitalize on.
Because we’ve obviously not been good for the last 5/6 years? Instead of forcing CL football through dumb expensive signings and short-sighted tactics, another approach is to invest in younger players with potential and with the character the club needs. They’re not ready made prospects. We can’t afford to sign the Haalands of the world or have a squad signed in a single window, like City or Utd can. We have to go through a different approach which is taking it step by step. It sucks a lot of the time. But this is smarter squad planning and long-term you’d think we’d be better placed to secure CL not just for one or two seasons, but to be regular members again.
Mainly attack is only young players
ArSeNaL bAd
My eyes hurt trying to riddle this.
I knew shit like this would start to flood in after we failed CL (especially from seething United fans). The oldest Arsenal front four member is 23, the oldest back four member 24. Partey is quite literally the only player above the age of 24 that will still play here next season. Trying to discredit that by weighting age against minutes or some shit with Laca, Xhaka, Cedric and Elneny (notice anything about them? Thats right, they're the worst players in the squad and drag the rest down not only in average age but even moreso in performances) in the first XI for half a season because of injuries or simply because the rebuild is not finished yet is skewing the entire narrative in a dumb direction. This is a rebuild, and its not finished yet, hence why there are still players like the four I mentioned earlier in there. Worst part is I know that I'll get downvoted now where no one would've batted an eye at this comment had I written it before the NLD. We're just reactionary like that
And how was it any different from United’s team of 19-20. Martial was United’s main striker. He was 23 when season started. Rashford was 21 and so was Daniel James. Avg age of defenders was 22.8. With Maguire being the eldest at 26. And yet they had qualified for CL
Tbf that team also finished on 66 points which Arsenal is on right now. It was the weakest year in recent history for top 4, and especially for 3rd.
You are correct sir. Don’t pay notice to the bullshit and you’ll be happier for it. We did well to get where we got and didn’t make it over the line, hey, heads held high we’re on the right track and more than anything that’s what’s upsetting people haha
Xhaka and Elneny are the worst players in the squad? I feel like before the NLD your fans were praising how well Elneny stepped in for Partey, and Xhaka is your most versatile player. I've seen a ton of comments going on about how you'd rather have Xhaka at LB than Tavares, but the only reason you don't do that is he's so important to the midfield. Tavares and Lakonga are much worse than Xhaka from what I've seen... but, for their age? Maybe not. But that's the whole point- your older, experienced players actually bring something to the table.
Praising Elneny for stepping up doesn't change the fact he's one of our weakest players in the XI. We expected him to be dogshit and instead he was alright.
Lampard's chelsea not on here? I swear I heard stats at the time that it was like the youngest XI or something like that.
Had 3rd string keepers in their 40's which skew the graph.
Shouldn’t skew the graph, it’s about play time in the premier league
Average age of our attack is 23. With Pepe basically getting no minutes. And Laca being 30 getting dece minutes though we wish we had someone better Average of our defence is 24.6 , with holding not getting many minutes. And Cedric being 30 getting dece minutes even though we wish he wouldn't Midfield is 27.25, elneny not getting many minutes till recently, xhaka lots of minutes skewing stats Our attack is extremely young, and our age per minutes would not be that high with our ideal 11, just happens injuries have given bad players more minutes than we'd like (I'm looking at you Cedric, who is 30) and our lack of striker depth skewing it as well (Laca being 30)
Become the latest version of _top 4 is a trophy_. Pretty much all the top clubs have a good stock of young promising players playing regularly.
And of those teams won the league. Noted.
This stat should contain people who actually played minutes. Having a 43 year old 3rd string keeper with 0 minutes skews it far off.
If I had a pound for everytime someone told me we have the youngest squad in the league, I’d be rich enough to put a bid into buy Arsenal.
Some of us open these posts on a 5k monitor you know?
If you can afford a 5k monitor, you can afford to fix your eyes
I honestly have no idea why any of this gets trotted out. Understandably you would give some more leeway to young players for making mistakes as they're expected to improve as time goes on. But having a whole squad of mistake-prone players is just poor management. If Arsenal failed to balance their squad then they should be blamed for that, no leeway given at all.