Looks like a team frustrated that they’re playing like shit. It’s not a big deal.
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Our current problems are down to a drop in form for many individual players and also having a very fixed way of scoring goals, which makes it easier (not saying easy) to defend against it. Not having a proper striker is another problem but not as big as the other two areas.
As far as form of the players goes, confidence plays a big role. Each player needs something different when it comes to finding confidence and Mikel and team will have to figure that out.
The bigger challenge is finding new patterns of play in our attack cause we are very predictable now.
How Mikel handles our current problems, and how quickly we can turn this around, will tell us a lot about if he is really the man who can take us to a title.
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White playing hurt, Saka playing hurt, Zinchenko playing hurt, Odegaard missing time, Martinelli missing time, Jesus missing time, but Arteta doesn’t seem to trust the bench options he picked. As good as the recruitment has been it’s fair to question the squad construction.
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How many Arteta signings can we say have truly worked out, during his 4 year stay here? He’s had about 7-8 transfer windows to fix the team and there’s still glaring holes everywhere across the pitch.
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He’s had quite a few imo.
Gabriel
White
Ramsdale
Tomiyasu
Zinchenko
Odegaard
Jesus
Trossard
Jorginho
Rice
Havertz
These are all players who have proven valuable in their time here and were signed while he was coach.
He’s also had new deals for Saka, Saliba and Martinelli which were very important as well.
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Havertz, Trossard, Jesus, Zinchenko…
I think it’s too early to say these folks have worked out. Three have only been here a year.
Jesus can’t score to save his life. Zinny is a liability defensively (though maybe for £25m it’s what to expect). Trossard has been poor for months.
Havertz, the jury is still out there with him.
Also Tomiyasu is always injured.
So that leaves Jorginho, Odegaard, Ramsdale, White and Gabby XL — I’d say they’ve all worked out. Though I think White is at his peak and won’t improve much.
Agree with you regarding the contract situations though, that was good business.
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I said that they’ve all proven useful. There are only a few transfers he’s done that I’d really question.
Kiwior isn’t a leftback so I’m not sure why he’s here if he really only plays leftback and he’s not looked great at centerback.
Vieira can’t seem to stay healthy or nail down a spot. I think there’s a talent there but it might be the wrong league for him.
Raya to me is a total lateral move. Feels a lot of money for very little improvement. Haven’t been impressed by him at all.
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Purely an indulgent and unnecessary signing, a poor use of next years resources.
The impact of his ball playing ability is close to negligible and has not resulting in better play
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PR media training guff lol
Thoughts?
The Havertz quote thing is a bit click baity, but there is value in this analysis
https://x.com/skysportspl/status/1741499655144243533?s=46&t=eJpgg6uHWRsStnASv-OePg
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Felt like a chance for Arteta to flex a little for whatever reason.
@Cristo he’s hardly going to say “The attack is shit, the defense cannot hold it together and the coach needs to figure it out quickly or else we’re fucked.” Even if it’s the truth.
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Exactly.
Not only was it a waste of resources on a position we’ve been strong in for several seasons, it has disrupted both GK’s and the rest of the team.
With Ramsdale possibly being sold to a PL team, just like Martinez, Leno and Turner, we’ve become a GK feeder club for the rest of the league, without having a top quality GK ourselves.
Arteta spent over 100m on Ramsdale and Havertz and there’s very little to show for that investment.
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It’s not even so much bringing him in, it’s the way he did it which was so fucking stupid. It killed any value Ramsdale had.
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Another example of Arteta’s questionable man management and Talent ID antics. Not filling me with confidence at all.
It’s funny though, cause I thought he had a 9/10 summer window; the Timber injury brought that down to a 7. The 15-game wait for Havertz to show some bite brought it to a 6, and the Raya purchase ultimately made it a 5/10 in hindsight.
£222m spent and we’re 20-30% worse than we were a year ago. Questions have to be asked.
Conceded more goals, scored fewer goals. Something needs to change, fast.
Sorry but I think this is ridiculous. Last summers window is probably our best ever. You can’t blame Artera for Timber’s injury. Havertz had come from a completely disfunctional Chelsea team and needed time to settle into our team and system (this hasn’t cost us in the first half of the season), and Raya is an excellent GK.
Also don’t accept we are 20-30% worse than last season. Liverpool have strengthened, Villa have improved, and other teams have adapted to counter our way of playing. We are clearly stronger this season but the squad is still a work in progress. We will strengthen again.
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I’d have thought with the transformation of so many of our fans into mentality monsters and hard bitten winners with such uncompromising standards that it would take more than two losses for them to give up.
I agree it was our best window ever.
But there’s little doubt that overtime, what was originally a 9/10 window was no longer such as the season unfolded. Havertz and Raya were seen to be and still are perceived as nonsensical signings. That’s £105m there.
Could we really not have gotten an improvement in those positions? I think they’re both a downgrade on Xhaka and Ramsdale in hindsight.
That said, I do think Havertz might come good in the long run, so I agree that it’ll take time to settle into our system.
Havertz, Rice and Raya are clear downgrades (for me) when compared with Xhaka, Partey and Ramsdale - that’s essentially who their replacements are.
We overspent on all three of them. Rice is the best of the bunch, and I’m convinced he’ll be the future Arsenal captain.
We are a good 1/4 worse than last season because we have fewer points, fewer goals scored and more goals conceded. I don’t think there’s a better barometer to judge a Premier League campaign by - though I’m all ears.
Of course missing Partey and Timber for large chunks of the season was not the plan (nobody wants to have their best players missing), but the fact that we failed to properly replace Partey or get better backups for our crusty front 3, is quite telling and is a big L that Mikel & Edu have to take.
Hopefully they’ll strengthen again in January, but it seems like FFP restricts us greatly unless we sell. And even if we were to, nobody’s really playing at the level to command a good fee from another top club.
I do agree that we have/had more control over our games, but have you noticed that we’re stilling playing quite emotionally in our style? We go up 1-0 then, sit and do nothing for 65 mins.
Wait for the opposition to score and then we go up a gear. Still relying on set pieces and last-minute winners for points.
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Check out the poll in the Liverpool FA Cup game thread. 
Is anyone else getting a bit tired of this high line v low block narrative every match?
I really can’t understand why we persist with the tactic against teams who sit deep. We should go back to 4-4-1-1 away from home. Like in the early Wenger years. Sit in your own half, soak it up, lure them in, then hit them on the counter.
I think Martinelli and Saka would be more effective on a fast counter attack, rather than trying to thread balls into the penalty area at a walking pace. We need a Plan B when Plan A isn’t working at half time, back to the future.
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