Gabriel, Partey and Willian were all guys he wanted. He wanted Ainsley to stay despite bids. He kept Holding despite bids. He kept Bellerin despite bids. Luiz got the second year on a big wage. He appears to love Xhaka and it didn’t sound like there was any effort to try and replace Lacazette.
I think Leno, Tierney and Aubameyang would be considered reasonably good by most people.
So I’ve no idea where 5 or 6 players is coming from. And I think it’s pretty unprofessional to suggest half your team simply isn’t capable of playing a reasonably standard formation, especially for a coach who’s had most of these players for almost a full season now.
I thought the point of the coach was to take the team and make it work, not just have players bought for you until you have 11 resembling your dream lineup. I guess he did learn from the best
Seems he’s one of those ‘I need an All Star team to impart my philosophy’ guys, hell knows what he sold them at the interview stage because that isn’t what the club was looking for.
We spent £100mil on Pepe and Saliba to be told we can’t play a standard formation that utilises them, tragic. This is going to get so ugly at end.
Really is starting to sound like a used car salesman that looks the part but who you know is trying to screw you over whilst smiling in your face, wonder how long the players are going to listen to this BS.
You wonder what the squad thought of those comments. They can probably see Leno, Aubameyang, Partey, Tierney, Gabriel are the “star” players in there, (or rather key players which can play in his desired formation), there’s 5 players, so saying up to 6 players aren’t suitable implies he wants to get rid of everyone else
I guess if he’s talking about the squad rather than first 11 it’s not quite as bad but still…
He keeps repeating the same mistakes which is idiotic.
He claims he he needs six or more players for his 433 tactics to work, which is not just idiotic but insane.
He is getting outplayed in almost every match by managers who are also new to the PL or who have just taken over at their club and with far less resources.
I admire your support for him but seriously, how bad does it have to get before you realise we could, and should, be doing a lot better with a more experienced, proven manager?
This club, I fear needs a complete overhaul, we’ve been that stale for years the only thing that’s really going to shake things up in my opinion is new ownership and somebody who actually does care about how we do on the pitch not somebody who say’s they do.
If we want to be anywhere near what we were a good 15 years ago then unfortunately only somebody with deep pockets and ambition is going to get us there.
Lol half the fanbase were fine with Bennacer going.
You can’t have it both ways. Fair enough if you knew it was a shit decisions at the time (@flexo and others) but if you were fine with it at the time then complaining now with hindsight is easy.
Anyways, Bennacer was one that was sacrificed for Xhaka, as Malen was for Lacazette and Saliba may be for Mustafi.
The headline is about letting Bennacer go in 2017. I had no problem with letting him got then.
What I’m fuming about is that Arsenal didn’t activate the buy back clause they smartly put in Bennacer’s contract in 2019. It wasn’t even a significant amount of money either.
I’m a stupid fuck who doesn’t have a professional level of knowledge about football, so even if I didn’t give a shit about Bennacer leaving at the time I think I’m alright to criticise the people who are paid large amounts of money to get these calls right. I barely ever saw him play, they would have seen him kicking a ball about hundreds of times between them, so of course they should have a better measure of him than us jokers.
They’re employed by a world famous football club because of their expertise, so I reckon it’s OK to hold them to a higher standard than a bunch of randomers on a football forum.
I’m 100% with you and I’ve made the same point many times.
But stories like this always surface when we do shit and some of them I think are only there to stick the knife in.
It’s unfair to go after them for letting Bennacer go.
And maybe it is less unfair to go after them for not buying him back but this club is all in on Xhaka, unable to shift Elnenny, so when you look at it through that prism it’s understandable.
Personally the amount of talent we’ve burnt through, either youth-wise or big signings, to appease the cabal of shitters we accumulated in 2016 and 2017, boils my blood when I think about it too much. Bennacer is just one of many. To me the main issue is those guys’ presence.
