Looked like a Wenger team today but I’m pissed
Yous fucken know pal
Yes. A fan beside me said the same thing. It’s difficult to disagree.
We just don’t seem to have an ethos of defending. Even our strikers don’t think, let’s get back and defend our goal. We don’t seem to want to win 50-50 challenges. Mustafi approaches every game like it’s a slow paced European game and soon gets found out.
It can’t be that difficult to train a defender into become a positionally aware “launch yourself into every ball” type defender in the mould of John Terry or Chiellini. What have we got Bould for? If I was him, I’d be excited at the thought of being able to train the likes of Chambers, Holding, Mav and Jenkinson into no nonsense defenders. They’re impressionable and they know no other way. In all likelihood, they’ll become more Philippe Senderos than Tony Adams now
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Looked like a Wenger team today but I’m pissed
I personally want Emery to prove me wrong just like I was wishing Wenger would, I don’t get up at 430am on Sunday mornings and waste my sunday nights sleep often just so I can say " I told you so" to people.
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Agreed. That is stupid. But many seem to put everyone in the same basket. I’m not pro-Emery, I’m pro-Arsenal.
Personally, I tried giving him(and the current board) the benefit of the doubt but it seems that things some feared, including myself, are getting realized. I don’t necessarily think he is bad coach or our squad is bad. I think it’s a mismatch and miscommunication put together by our masterminds behind the scenes.
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I really can’t see him being fired at the end of this season. I’m not saying he’s the world’s greatest coach but firing him after only two transfer windows after the club served up a shit sandwich in terms of squad construction doesn’t make a ton of sense.
Having a structure where the manager isn’t the last word on transfers is one thing but having a structure where coaches are blasted out of a cannon (pun intended) because we fucked up our wages will lead to us attracting less and less talented candidates.
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Well, if he doesn’t get the reinforcement he wants/needs in January then it’s clear that the relationship between coach-board has not been revised.
If somehow we end up out of top 6 and out of Europa then I can’t see him staying for long.
It’s sad that posters are more concerned about the brownie points than the health of the club.
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With that said, perspective is important. Arsenal are still fifth, two points behind the top four, and are in the preliminary stages of Emery’s tenure. He needs time, patience and money.
The 22-game unbeaten run was both the best and worst thing that could have happened. It showed that the new manager’s methods do work, that many of these players are more than good enough, and that Arsenal were not left too far behind their peers. But it increased expectations and led to restlessness at the first sign of familiar failings. They were too good too soon.
Emery took the reins at a side who had been controlled – not just managed – by one man for 22 years. He has to reverse the bad habits of a lifetime, and needs more than one window to mould this squad in his image. Rome was not built in a day, and a Wenger-less Arsenal was not built in seven months.
They have now lost three of their last five games. Emery might quietly be thankful that stratospheric expectations have come crashing back down to Earth. The sixth-best squad in England is currently fifth.
This is a good extract from 16 conclusions. Cold hard facts. The 6th best team is 5th
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Our defenders lack character and balls. Feels like a problem that runs through the core of our club, like it’s an almost unshakeable fragility. Emery should absolutely be held accountable for this horrific defensive record, and whilst I wasn’t expecting miracles, I was expecting improvement. But then that needs caveating because he is working with utter fucking shite.
We need a van Dijk-esque signing to rejuvenate the back four. A guy who has proper leadership qualities and the ability to go along with it. There is a sickening lack of quality in our defensive roster, by far the weakest in the top 6 imo.
When you see the shoddy penalties we give away, and the calamitous miskicked clearances, it gives you an insight into the total lack of composure and bottle in that defence.
The tragic consistency of our shitty defensive performances in big games is just a reflection of the mental weakness of our defenders generally. There’s literally no conviction in our defending, like we know we will concede. Emery can only do so much but the players have to be held responsible for their utterly reprehensible decision making at key moments. The defence needs a complete fucking overhaul and I can’t wait until the likes of Mustafi, Lichsteiner, Koscielny etc. are off the books for good.
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When Emery first came here I was under the impression that he was brought in to sort out the defence and I was surprised when our attack became more fluent and direct but he ignored all the deficiencies in our defence.
We have to give him a couple of transfer windows to get some better defenders in and start to coach them into proper defensive unit.
If he can’t do that and we aren’t out scoring the opposition then maybe start thinking about replacing him.
But remember these are Wenger’s defenders, coached and organised by Wenger and chosen by him, so it’s hardly surprising that any new manager would have a problem getting them to play like a defensive unit should do.
I still think we should have gone for a more proven organiser, someone who would have taken this group of defenders and whipped them into shape like Simeone or Conte but Emery hasn’t done too bad with our results so he should be given at least two or three transfer windows to sort this mess out.
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Five points now :unai:
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what I cant take about games like yesterday is the fact we are literally scared of the opponents. Happened time and time again.
I accept we are lacking at the back but those mistakes yesterday are down to nerves. Quite simply we cant handle big game situations against big sides.
The majority of our team suffer with that as its a general malaise that effects this club. Players leave here like the Ox and a huge burden just seems to lift.
Thats one of a number of huge tasks facing Emery.
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Bellerin kind of gets a pass from me because he was taught to defend by Wenger, but Kolasinac, Leno, Sokratis, Mustafi, Lichsteiner played enough for mid table or above teams. Sure there were question marks about all of them, and all were said to have “an error in them”, but are they all truly bottom of the barrel awful? Is every defender signed by Arsenal in the past decade all completely useless? Or are they just managed incorrectly by two coaches?
My worry with Emery at the beginning was him buying into the “Arsenal must play an attractive brand of football” shite from Gazidis and letting that come before organisation. That appears to be happening, but there’s time to rectify it.
We’re in a rut right now and this self inflicted result was kind of rock bottom. It’ll be interesting to see his response in the next 2 or 3 games because if this poor run continues then we’re basically a Wenger team and there are no more Vorsklas to pad out our wins.
It hasn’t been working for a while now and we need Emery to add a twist, like Wenger did when he successfully moved us to a back 5 to grind out wins. If he carries on as we have been I’ll be disappointed.
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How times have changed.
When we had hard players like Adams, Keown, Campbell, Lauren, Vieira, Petit, etc, they weren’t scared of any opposition.
We also had players like Henry, Pires, Ljundberg, RVP, and others who would scare the opposition but we don’t have any players like that anymore.
What we seriously lack are leaders.
As far as I can see, Wenger assembled a team full of physically and mentally weak players that aren’t fit to wear the shirt.
It’s going to be difficult to change the atmosphere of complacency that Wenger installed in the players, but if Emery can get some more players with the desire and hunger that Torreira shows, it might go some way to changing it.
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Who cares if they show desire and hunger? I only care if they win.
People loved when Lichsteiner and the subs got into a pushing match with Eric Dier but none of that visible effort is useful when he’s shown to not be up to scratch playing in an actual game!
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I wonder why?