Things are seemingly going from bad to worse for Mikel Arteta and his Arsenal side at present, with an opening day Premier League defeat at Brentford certainly not what was required.
The Gunners have lost the air of invincibility that they had under Arsene Wenger, and which was as a result of players like Patrick Vieira and Manu Petit grabbing a game by the scruff of the neck and raising the performance levels of all around them.
It’s no wonder then that Petit is starting to switch off where one of his old clubs is concerned.
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“Little by little I am losing interest in Arsenal, with this way of playing it does not generate any emotion to see their games,” the ex-midfielder said to RMC Sport, cited by football.london.
“They give me no emotions and I find that I don’t get the trajectory the team have taken in the last few years. It started in the last few years of Arsene Wenger’s management and it has continued with his successors.
“I don’t get it because it’s not about money, they have money but it’s more about the profiles. We will see the player’s profiles they have signed in this transfer window but I see from yesterday’s game that Arsenal’s weaknesses are the same they have been for years, particularly on the defensive side, last night it was a fiasco.”
The bite that was a hallmark of Wenger’s title-winning squads has long been missing from Arteta’s vintage.
The senior pros need to take a long, hard look at themselves now, because it won’t be acceptable to any of the North London faithful if they’re put through another season similar to 2020/21.
Negative fans started this downward spiral when, instead of supporting the club in 2015 when we well could have won the league, they were more interested in protesting Wenger and undermining their own players. We missed out on the league title and the most negative and obnoxious fans found that the media loved them. Since then, the relationship between fans and players have gone south, with many instances of unwarranted abuse targeting top players like Sanchez, Ozil, Xhaka and of course Wenger. We sacked our most successful manager ever, and then Emery–who was the second most successful by win rate–also shown the door. Arteta has won trophies in the least amount of games and his win rate is 3rd, but he’ll be gone soon too. Unfortunately, with fans like AFTV and the business model for their success being hysterical negativity and attacking your own club, this downward spiral can only continue to accelerate as the negative feedback loop gets stronger. More negativity = worse results = more negativity and so on.
If fans had the mentality of Wenger; solidarity, class, doing your part to support the club, we would simply not be in this position. Unfortunately, negativity is what social media and the press are most effective at amplifying and disseminating, and watching a legendary club like Arsenal collapse makes for great headlines. Our inexorable slide towards relegation will continue.
Arsenal do not have defensive issues, and they didn’t last season. The Gunners surrendered fewer goals than anyone except Man City and Chelsea.
The problem was scoring goals, and the scoring problems were caused by a lack of midfield quality; Arsenal’s midfielders couldn’t score to save their lives and they did not so much in the way of providing assists either.
It is hard to watch the team. The quality of players signed since Arsene Wenger’s departure has been markedly lower, especially relative to their productivity.
Pepe has been average; not good, not bad. Which for 72 million is a poor return. Odegaard has been mediocre, scoring 2 and assisting none in his half season. Leno has been adequate. Mari has been okay. Gabriel has been decent. Tierney is probably the the best player signed since Wenger left. Luiz was good, but was already established and at the end of his career. Martinelli has promise, but he is very one dimensional at the moment. Partey has been okay, but his injury issues has blunted his impact.
Holding has been Arsenal’s best defender, and he is a Wenger player. Saka was signed and developed under Wenger. Aubameyang, Lacazette, Bellerin, Chambers, Xhaka, Elneny… all outperform the players brought in by Emery or Arteta.
Arteta continues his efforts to make Bellerin a scapegoat, which is working because pundits and too many fans are so stupid. All the talk is about how Arsenal need a right back. Why? The team’s best right back only plays when he cannot possibly make a difference, the same thing Emery and Arteta did to Ozil. Calum Chambers got a shot at playing right back under Wenger and was not effective as a regular starter.
Arteta’s Tactical nous as a coach should be questioned seriously.
Pablo Mari (though has the height, power and pass), but he doesn’t have the pace of a typical Arsenal centre back, yet Arteta is playing Tierney as an overlapping leftwing back, leaving Mari exposed?!!!
Chambers (though has the height and pass) but doesn’t have the fullback pace nor centreback power of a typical Arsenal defender, so what is he doing in the team? not to talk of him playing ahead of Bellerin/Cedric/Niles in the rightwing back??
We are blessed with wonderful strikers, but Arteta doesn’t know how to use any of them PROPERLY as a Centre Forward.
In modern football, wingforwards ought to be diminutive (i.e. less than 180cm, say 178cm and below). That’s why Pepe, Auba, Martinelli, Folarin, Smith Rowe will continue to be hit and miss when they are played out on the wing without them matching conquering pace with arch typical agility and fitness Cristiano Ronaldo.
Arteta is not different from Wenger, he clearly has a blind spot. If not Pepe would not be playing on the wings ahead of Nelson, Willian, Saka, Nketiah and Niles.
We have a squad that’s capable of winning the league but Arteta is too poor a coach for Arsenal. He can’t develop any player, he can’t improve any player.
Atleast, 2 should be sold, out of Auba, Pepe and Lacazette. So that Nketiah, Folarin and Martinelli can be fighting to play up front.
Also if we must buy a centreback, he must be pacy, slik, powerful and tall.
Our academy should also focus on signing speedy tall players and develop them into defensive midfielders or centrebacks.
I’ve always said it that our attack is our problem, due to the fact that we have no player in the midfield that has a vision like Viera, Fabregas and Song who could give the final pass to the strikers to tap-in. We should not forget that the likes of Adebayo, Giroud are not better than Aubamiyang and Lacazete, but they score more goals because they play alongside a good passer who could give them the pass once they make the move unlike now that our midfielders always turn away from the strickers which always make the likes of Auba and Lacazete get angry always because the pass did not get to them moreso our present wingers are not as good as the likes of pires, lumberg, hleb and Walcott the last of them who always provide the enabling environment for the strikers to score goals because of their pace and skills.
Now we only have one winger in the likes of Saka who can always boast of dribbling the opposition defenders while People is always feeling shy to move forward or dribble and we are thinking of winning matches which I don’t think is possible with these crop of attackers we are parading.
I believe Arteta should read this if he want to be successful and make changes in the area I pointed out.
I am not a professional coach but I am very sure of this observations that I have made.
Thanks
Arsenal only only two creative midfielders to have an impact. I’m talking about two skilled and strong midfielders, nothing more, and the team would shine. The strikers are gold – Aubameyang is a fantastic player who is being exploited by Arteta.