So now it’s the FA Cup but otherwise just the league. Need to use the rest of the season to continue working on how we want to play, who is going to go or stay and build the team ready for next season. Gutted.
Way too early for that. He’s allowed to make mistakes and lose a game. He needs to be given time and be backed in the transfer market before we can start talking about him using up his life lines.
To lose like thst could either be the making or breaking of a team...you will need to bounce back next week or by next Thursday your season could be all over.
I accept it is too early, all I am saying is that the loss against what is a poor opposition with a full team, would not have done his credentials any good. I accept he needs time...
I feel soo bad for Aubameyang. He works soo hard does soo much yet certain players just dont give the same level of commitment.
I think the season has been over for a long time pal.. It is just a procession till the end. 1 more win to get to the magical 40pts.. We can then chill and look to next season with the same trepidation as we did this one!
from winning the league and going undefeated to getting to the champions league final to settling for top4 to playing in the europa league to getting knocked out by olympiakos in the round of 32 to possibly not even having european football next season. I repeat...the decline continues.
Its a bit of a self fulfilling propecy though - If fans expect a decline they are in many ways contributing towards one. The negativity surrounding Arsenal in recent years has had a big influence. It's bad enough the media likes to attack us, the fans are overly negative particularly on social media, the stadium is quiet. This is abig advantage I have always felt Liverpool have. For whatever reason - They are always positive always belive their club is going to succeed... and this bleeds through to the players.
I get the point that our fans can be overly negative.. However, I disagree with the Liverpool assertion. I seem to recall them during their days in the wilderness, with Souness, Houllier, Roy Evans and even Brendan Rodgers.. Imagine if we have a manager like Brendan that was able to take them to a whisker of winning the league, we would forever be grateful... What did they do, they got him fired. I think our fans are very cerebral and mostly are just begging to finish in the top7!
I'm sorry, but you cannot put the blame on the fans for the resulting performances and malaise on the pitch. The fact is every senior member at the club in the last 15 yeas has had a role to play, contributing to our demise, both off field and on-field. From getting Kroenke involved; lowering our ambitions every year; not pushing the boat out in the transfer market; misplaced faith in the wrong players; persisting with Wenger and his coaching staff for too long; not being ruthless enough; letting players contracts run down, giving them total control over the next move (which caused the whole Ozil fiasco); not sufficiently replacing the players we lost; not recouping the money from the value of the players we lost (Cazorla, Sanchez, Ramsey etc...); bad recruitment. The fans are absolutely NOT to blame for any of those things. The fans are disillusioned and irate because of the false promises made by prominent members of the club who promised to deliver glories of yesteryear, when we are further and further from that starry-eyed dream every single damn year. The fans want to see a competitive team that wears heart on their sleeves and tries every week. They want to see an owner who cares about the club. They haven't seen enough of either in the last decade and a bit. So they are rightfully and justifiably angry that this is the remains of a once great club.
RCL, no point sugar-coating it mate. The season is effectively over. This was our best chance of reaching Europe's elite competition again and we have totally fallen apart, despite being in absolute control of the tie. We are 7 points behind in the league with games like Leicester (H), Liverpool (H), Wolves (A), Spurs (A), City (A), Southampton (A), and two relegation-battling sides in Brighton (A) and West Ham (H) coming up. Unless we get between 17-19 points from that run in - whilst also simultaneously relying on our 'rivals' to slip up - it is a pipe-dream. Even if we went all the way and won the FA Cup, it is still a failure of a season. The objective was to get Champions League football. We are looking highly likely to not achieve that objective. I just want the season to end already.
Absolutely gutted for Auba last night. He had the look of a player who had just realised that he might just be off in the summer. But...if we do fail to qualify for the CL, part of me wonders if that miss last night might make him think 'you know what, we'd could have been in it if I'd scored', which could persuade him to stay and fight to get us back in it.
It is going to be interesting to see if inserting the winter break will affect all English teams. We (England) were dominating in Europe, but the games are piling up on top of each other now. The players were dead on their feet almost from the start. Maybe Arteta should have rotated more, but we don't have a deep squad right now. It looked like one of our old men games in the final of a tournament in August, everyone trying to pass the ball sideways to catch their breath.
Hey Im not blaiming the fans for all our woes. I'm just stating my opinion as someone who regularly attends games at the Emirates. With better support we would win more games. And witth a less toxic fanbase our players would almost certainly be happier. You see it with Dortmund,Celtic, Liverpool a good fanbase can rouse players to better performances.
Dunno mate. As gutted as we would be, I don't think any Arsenal fan would begrudge Auba leaving to play CL football if we don't get it this season. I do genuinely think he is happy at Arsenal and loves being a part of this team, but at the end of the day he is 30 and he wants to play at the top level. We simply can't offer him that atm
What I'm saying to you is that the reason why the atmosphere is so crap is down to the countless broken promises and decline in quality over the years. This should not have been happening, especially as we had more money to spend from 2014 onwards. We should never have let things get this bad. The atmosphere at The Emirates was pretty good up until the last 4/5 years when it became clearer Wenger lost it, but he was signing contract extensions and the board were not rectifying our issues in the transfer market. If you are going to pay eye-watering ticket prices, then your expectations will naturally be higher. This has not translated to on the pitch success, so the fans have grown tired of it and have stopped going because they're disenfranchised with what is going on. When you look at how we've played for the last 18 months, can you really blame them? The aforementioned clubs do not pay the ticket prices we do and are not currently going through hardships we are. If they were, I guarantee you their atmospheres would not be so buoyant.
What broken promises? see.. the thing is Arsenal fans like to perpetrate this concept that the reason we havnt been successful as of late was down to a lack of trying or investment from the board. But the financial results are pretty transparent and thats cleeeearly not true. Bad decisions when it comes to signings, Wengers ridiculous wage policy that saw players like Bendtner earning WAY more than they deserved were all ingredients. Also players on BIG wages like Ozil/Xhaka/Mkhitarian have not cut it. The Club has actually spent big - particularly when you consider the fact we dont currently have Champions League money coming in. Pepe £72million, Auba £55, Lacazette £50m, Ozil £47m, Mustafi £30m, Xhaka £35m .. hardly a lack of investment. It just hasnt worked out. Arsenal fans have no real reason to feel aggrieved. Livperpool for example spent 4 years outside of the Champions League places and I dont remember silent Anfield or regular booing of players. Its not unusual to go to the Emirates and hear a small group of 2-3000 away supporters making more noise than the Arsenal. We for whatever reason are a negative bunch - don't forget Highbury was also nicknamed the 'Library' by our London rivals. I love the Club but our fans are pretty ****.