The squad is awful. We put it all in for the Liverpool and City games and had nothing left.
It was a terrible performance but the league season is done I’m disappointed we lost but nothing we can do
This is a very good point, well made
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silver lining in the Aston Villa match, we actually won xG, but barely… lol… probably mostly from Eddie’s late header.
Aston Villa: 0.57
Arsenal: 0.74
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Maybe, just maybe half these bums you want to keep are still bums, despite a couple good performances.
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I’ll always maintain Arteta is only making bad players play better than helping bad players improve. I’ll never trust most of this squad.
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Who is this “you” you are referring to, lol?
Are people really wanting us to keep anyone other than Auba, Saka, Leno/Martinez, Tierney, Ceballos (maybe), Saliba, and… ummm… know I am forgetting one or two…
The guy whose thread it is
Once again it’s a throw away season. I’m actually a little happy that we threw villa a bone and they look somewhat safe from relegation now. However I still have the same issues I had with Arteta 3 and 4 weeks ago. We don’t create any chances we are devoid of creativity in the middle of the park, *COUGHOZILCOUGH excuse me. The fact that we are hovering around 0.7 xg every single game, and losing the shot/shot on goal battle consistently, tells you something, we were extremely lucky to get the past few results that are sandwiched between very poor results against Leicester, scum, and now relegation fodder. Arteta gets the benefit of having next season, but imo It’s eyebrow raising and worrisome.
As far as my Özil agenda goes, I knew it would come back to bite us. Sure having a great culture is important but nobody will give a shit about our culture if we keep losing to spurs and villa, and Arteta only has himself to blame for piss poor league results because he is clearly either too stubborn to use our best creative player, or the club are forcing him on the matter. Arteta needs to be a lot less dogmatic and figure out a compromise.
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Post-game interview, taking questions etc. I can’t help but like the way he talks about all things Arsenal.
Still a terrible performance confirming that we will end outside the top 6 for the first time since 1996. It’s significant.
And it was the first loss away to Villa since 1998, 0 shots on goal, the Liverpool game was vs a team that had already won the league yet we still lost the shots 24-3, City game we had lowest possession recorded since the start of the PL iirc etc. Lots of red flags to get rid of still. We can still salvage the season (imo) with an FA cup win so it’s all about that game now. Feelsbadman but we’ll be back.
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Can’t really disagree with any of this bar the Ozil part - not buying your vast conspiracy on that one… would he improve us? Maybe marginally, but I have seen us with equally shambolic performances with an without him and I certainly think not playing him against City and Pool was the right move… this game is pretty damning though… it is clear he and Guen are persona non grata with Arteta and he is the boss.
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I’ve been very critical of the SDE we displayed under Emery so it’s only fair that Arteta gets dragged for this debacle.
I understand that the players were probably out of gas after two big wins and I’ve got no issues with rotation but I did expect us to show a little bit more initiative playing relegation fodder. Starting a midfield of Torreira and Ceballos doesn’t make any sense with a guy like Xhaka around (not his biggest fan but w/e) who plays basically every minute of every game anyway.
I’m also a little lost as to why Kola stayed on for so long. The drop off between our first 12 or 13 players and the rest is shocking. (I think @k1tsun3 made that point further up). We just don’t have enough depth and there wasn’t really anything on the bench to change the game beyond Pepe.
Really disappointed with the set up. I said during the match that it felt a lot like Brighton last season when we shit the bed. Hopefully we can pull it together and have a better display against Watford but I’m afraid it’s going to be more rotation in order to field the best XI for the final.
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The penalty box is lava.
Obviously emery massively favoured playing through the wings. His prime tactic last season was kolasnic bulldozing his way in from the left.
And I think 343 under arteta influences us to play through the wings even more especially with teams seemingly more than happy for us to play there.
Given our formation and current players it’s impossible to say if this is how arteta wants us to set up next season, ideally I’d hope not. How little we get the ball into “the hole” (insert gif here) is worrying.
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Basically contradicting yourself lol if it’s a throwaway season, then why waste precious top-level minutes on a player who won’t be here in the long-term? Better to start building the culture right away if results aren’t as important, particularly in the league.
And of course, building a good culture is part of becoming a team that doesn’t lose to Spurs and Villa.
But yeah lol let’s play Ozil in game 37 of a shithouse season only half-managed by our current manager because we need to show we can beat Villa, not work on a long-term system.
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How am I contradicting myself to say Arteta has a lot of leeway right now because as I’ve maintained from the very start he’s going to be judged on next season? The imperative word in my sentence was ‘keep’ losing to spurs and villa, meaning if it continues to happen in this manner into the future the bull shit narrative about culture won’t mean squat.
Özil isn’t going anywhere first off, so to ur point he needs to be integrated into this system being our most creative player. Second, I dunno about u but I personally don’t enjoy watching us lose 1 nil and not even have a shot on target. I dunno maybe that’s entertaining to you 
And yeah saying “if” means you are discussing conjecture. If we go on and start beating those teams regularly and consistently, then people would probably say the culture thing was a good move.
Of course, these are both hypotheticals and you’re the only one of us using a hypothetical point in the future which is extremely dependent on a multitude of other things as your point of argument.
Ozil isn’t part of a plan to be successful in the long-term either, since he’s well at the tail-end of his career regardless of our personal views of his ability.
Your simplistic analysis which implies Ozil and 1-0 losses to Villa and Spurs are inherently and mutually related things is inaccurate and a ridiculous way to argue considering the absolute wealth of footballers playing the game throughout the world.
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People turning on Arteta again? Can’t wait for us to beat Watford convincingly then these people will be back on the Arteta bandwagon. Fickle.
IF Arteta beats Watford his results over 38 games equal 62 points. That wouldn’t have been far off the 66 points United and Chelsea will end with if they win their last game 
.
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Interesting one. He mentions ESR by the way. Seems like he is in his plans for next season.
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bottom 5 in shots taken!?
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I’m not directing this at anyone in particular but it’s ridiculous that the minute anyone criticises Arteta it means their turning on him or if they praise him their suddenly changing their tune and his biggest fan. It is possible to praise and criticise on a game by game basis, without totally changing your overall opinion on him.
I think he got his tactics, lineups and subs wrong against Villa, being the only team in the premier league to not register a single shot on target against a villa team who have the second worst defensive record in the league and have conceding 66 goals is an absolute joke considering the kind of attacking talent we have in our squad, and that falls directly on Arteta’s shoulders. At the same time, I am overall very happy with the direction he’s taking the team, I’m very happy with how he’s sticking to his guns regarding team discipline, and love what he has done with us defensively and am very much looking forward to see what he does this summer and next season.
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