I think Partey genuinely strengthens our midfield and the creative side is much better with Saka ESR and Martinelli coming through. I think Tierney from left back adds a lot too when he supports going forward.
I think for the rest of the people mentioned whether it’s Ozil, Guen, Toreira or whatever that they are the equivalent of zephyrs giving false rays of hope in our desperation.
It’s very easy to remember their good performances (especially Ozil at his best although I remember his best less well than most of us) but the facts in recent times before they were dropped/moved on are that they were very much less than great. Most definitely not notably above the rest of the options we’ve been using since then. No better really than me saying we should play Ray Parlour again when I fondly remember his battling midfield performances (yes I’m exaggerating I know he’s far too old now).
The fact is the squad is still well short as other prem teams have improved a lot in recent times and made better use of their growing TV income than we have. Leicester are the stand out improvers but the other smaller clubs can still put very good seasons together now eg Southampton, Wolves etc and Everton look like having a chance of rejoining the big clubs again.
Add to that an Arteta with his L plates on and it’s no wonder we’re struggling to maintain a top half of the table place.
Very true. We can still see our glaring issues in the Palace match and the FA Cup match vs Saints. It’s as if we could play for 10 hours and not create anything. The Chelsea performance was good but it had massive fortune involved. A dubious penalty, a direct Xhaka free-kick and Saka scoring from a cross
Brighton for some reason were far from full strength when they played us and WBA/Toon are the 2 easiest sides in the league to play right now. The next 4 vs Southampton/United/Wolves and Villa will be a better reflection of if there’s been any progress.
mesut isnt world class on his day he was and he could have been if he tried but otherwise hell no…world class pretty much every game you at least contribute half of his games he was a ‘luxury player’ pissing about doing nothing in particular. If you think Ozil is world class i dunno what to tell you, the only thing he is world class at is marketing himself.
This to me is the biggest problem with Arteta. He can’t manage talent and he can’t manage egos. It is clear as day that there are better players to give minutes to than Willian, Elneny or Ceballos, but Arteta will stick with the guys who won’t oppose his micro management tactics.
All would be good if he got results, but thank god this fraud got exposed really hard. We are a shite team under him, we play shite football under him, we have no teeth, and we have no talent to look forwards to.
Tbf, a win here was expected.
Southampton put out a weakened side, that was tired from the match on Saturday and with more or less the same approach.
We had an improved and fresh side today, and Arteta had time to see where he got it wrong and fix it.
Happy to see more positive consistency in our results with plenty more goals in the process.
16 points in our last 18 is an encouraging tunrouand especially coming from the massive hole that the manager and players were in just a couple of weeks back.
BT Sport also mentioned a stat of this being our 3rd consecutive away win for the first time in around 2 years?
The youngsters continue to repay the faith and it seemed that in the post match interview, Arteta hit back at critics for not playing a stronger team in the cup, e.g. playing the 1st team, but stressed the importance of protecting certain players
Thought he instilled a pretty good game plan last night.
Even though we went a goal down early, we started with more purpose and tempo for once. Looked more proactive than usual.
Comprehensive win really .
So what’s the general consensus on Arteta now? Are people still desperate to see him sacked?
Personally I’m glad we’ve stuck with him. Even when we went through the non-winning streak, I thought there was something there to work with – which differed from Emery where I didn’t have a clue what the fuck he was trying to do most of the time. There has been a really good turnaround too, which many didn’t see coming.
Arteta speaks “like” a manager most of the time too, which I know doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, but having a manager who installs confidence in me is obviously better than having one who doesn’t.
