Howe seems decent, I’m starting to like this guy the more I see & hear from him.
Arteta had a almost free year too with nothing much expected of him, he might still do it, ifs it’s any consolation it’s that you’ve not been humiliated this season where as we have.
Waiting to see what happens at celtic lately is groundhog day all over again 
Edit: Not expected to win any major thropies I mean being realistic.
Do you also think Liverpool are the 5th best team in England? Or do you think losing half their team hurt them in the same way Arsenal improved when they got Saka, ESR, Tierney and Partey back and signed Odegaard? That’s half their team!
Arsenal aren’t great obviously, but it should also be obvious they’ve been much better since they got better players in due to signings/injuries.
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Arsenal took 6 shots per match for the first 13 matches matches and had a negative xG. They had a negative shot differential. They played with 3 at the back and relied on Bellerin and Tierney to advance the ball into the attacking areas. They were in 13th, and deservedly so.
Since then, they’ve averaged 15 shots per match. Positive xG. They play with 3 attacking mids in a 433 with Saka, ESR and Odegaard who do all the progression.
It’s a completely different system and team Marty. Arsenal probably should be 5th, but they’re not miles off of United, who are second. They outplayed them in both matches with them.
Not much of that Pool squad was considered as good as they are now when bought and the team was being assembled. Klopp is a great coach and got them to be even better than the sum of their parts. Just FIFA style the Arsenal team isn’t miles behind Pool, but the Pool team has been carefully assembled over 5 years. Arsenal were a bunch of mismatched toys at the beginning of the year. Now, when everyone is healthy it kind of works.
I wouldn’t consider Pepe nor Ceballos anywhere near the first xi and would be surprised if Lacazette is here next year. Ceballos won’t be and that’s the job. You need a backup GK, starting CM, backup LB and for everyone else to stay healthy.
Obviously they’re far behind Pool. But a year ago every team in Europe bar Bayern and maybe PSG was. They just have to beat out one of United/Chelsea for top 4. If they win the EL they’re pretty well off. If they don’t and get 10th, they can get t4 with some injury luck not being in Europe. We see how that has favored West Ham/Everton this season.
Odegaard would push. So would Saka and ESR if fit.
But you’ve gone the long way round of agreeing with what I’ve been saying all along - that the squad is nowhere near good enough.
Every manager has an idea of how he wants his team to play (style, formations etc).
It’s hard to judge any manger until he has the squad he wants. Maybe Arteta will never be good enough, but until he has another two transfer windows to get close to what he wants it’s premature to judge him.
He’s a rookie manager and has been learning on the job - the fans knew that and accepted there would be a learning curve. He’s made a lot of mistakes, but as long as he keeps learning from them and improving (when injuries/fitness allow) there’s no great clamour I can detect to change managers.
Most Arsenal fans I know don’t want to become “one of those” clubs who chop and change managers every 18 months to two years.
Chelsea lost to WB this weekend. Spurs got heavily outplayed by Newcastle.
I think it is standard to state pool, city, chelsea and United are better than Arsenal. I would agree. But, Arteta has a win over each of them in the last year. In the last five Wenger and Emery only managed a couple of wins over those 4.
Pep won’t be at City forever. He got burned out at Barca and Bayern. Pool only have two or so years left with this squad before major turnover.
Yeah exactly. And many of our defeats came after individual errors because of an unbalanced squad riddled with inconsistent players.
We saw that again aginst Pool, where Gabriel started very well but as the game wore on you could see how much pressure he was under with Holding and Chambers on his RHS and it began to take its toll on him, dragging him down.
We won’t be able to migrate from Luiz/Holding/Chambers to a top class RCB with able deputies, from Bellerin/Cedric to a better RB with deputy, from Xhaka to a better CM with deputy, from the ageing Auba/Laca to a new striker (Martinelli?) and fake 9 (if that’s how Arteta wants to play), which is what we have to aim for, in one year or even two.
That is correct. Before City and Pool got good, they both had hilarious years where they let in the dumbest goals. Because of financial limitations I don’t think Arsenal has the same ceiling, but they absolutely have to be competing for top 4 next year.
Dike with a brace today:
7 goals in 14 appearances now, getting some PL hype.
Seems like the exact sort of bullying forward that could help in shitty concacaf games.
Oh and it’s ‘dee-kay’, I thought it was pronounced rhyming with bike… lol whoops
It depends how much money Kroenke allows us to spend when we’re making a loss. There isn’t a manager in the world who could get this squad into a competitive top 4 next season.
I hate to think what we’re forking out for fucking Willian and Luiz, and we’ll still be (literally) paying the price for some bad decisions in future seasons.
Well take the bin shed on loan, probably. 
First goal is a joke - guy strolls through MF unopposed, keeper fucks it up, your boy taps in
Second goal looks better but who knows? He’s built like a brick shithouse so he has that going for him
That’s fair.
I’ve seen him play a bit more from the last time I brought him up. I think the talk of him going to a top 6 club is ludicrous and likely made up bullshit. Don’t think he has the skill yet to compete regularly at that level.
However, if Barnsley wins the promotion playoff I think he could be very useful for a bottom half premier club. Barnsley also has a buy option on his contract, reportedly (lol) for 20 million plus 20% of a later sale.
MLS teams can be fucking stupid about transfers though. They’ve sabotaged players going to Europe before. The problem is that they share profits and having a bigger budget doesn’t necessarily buy you anything good in MLS because of their salary rules.
I have no idea what this means. Like in a serious no idea what bin shed is way
Jumping the dikes was a children’s game in the old days of Glasgows tenement history & a dike was the common wall that was the back of the bin shed.
And he is a bit of a wall 
by all accounts.
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CL tonight…
Man C V Dortmund
Real V Pool
It’s got to be the Liverpool game for me I think.
And hope Haarland does it in Manchester tonight, go on Dortmund 
I’ve been railing poker all day, turned it over for the pool game but had to go back to the Poker as I’m enjoying it to much
An hour in an Haland hasn’t scored?