Trying not to go on a full-on rant, but I don’t understand what Arteta was trying to do with some of his decisions. Saka is clearly not fully fit, and he was signalling to the bench that he needs to be taken off. Why did we keep on until the 97th minute? We’re going to run him into the ground. Arteta needs to manage him way better than he’s currently doing. Starting Vieira when we needed athleticism and physicality/running power to match Spurs didn’t seem smart. Taking Jesus off, when Nketiah was absolutely horrible for the entire game, was utterly insane. Jesus was at least trying to make things happen and was an outlet, even if he wasn’t having a great game. Nketiah made us feel like we were playing with 10 men. ESR should have come on much earlier too. I don’t know what the point was of giving him 5 minutes to make an impact. Ridiculous. The Rice injury couldn’t have come at a worse time and I really hope he’s not out for too long. Today’s result was an accumulation of players not being on it at all (Odegaard with his worst performance in 2 years), Arteta’s in game management, poor subs and injuries to key players who we can’t afford to get injured. You’re not going to win against good teams when all these factors come into play. Honestly, against Brentford in midweek, just field a second string XI mixed with some U21 players. Don’t risk any first team players in the Carabao Cup, please.
He’d be better and more efficient than every centre forward we have at the club right now. We are not in a position to be turning a player of his ilk down.
The Havertz signi g was baffling tbh. Also read that Saka has started every league games for over 2 seasons.. if true that's gonna burn him out
Seriously, we need to sort this LCM position out and pronto. Vieira isn’t it, Havertz is appalling, Arteta won’t use ESR there…if there’s two positions I want us to fix in January, it would be CF and LCM. Right now, we look very unbalanced. And this was the case even before the injuries. The Timber injury has also facked us, but we can’t be this reliant on him being fit surely.
He was signalling for ages to the bench that he needed to come off and we waited 20 minutes before we did it, which basically meant we were intentionally sabotaging ourselves and our chances of winning by playing a half fit player. He’s going to get run into the ground if Arteta doesn’t start managing him properly.
Some of Artetas' selections are becoming rather baffling. Just don't understand his obsession with Havertz and Nketiah, neither of them should be anywhere near this team. The defence is still panicky under pressure and it looks as though our best striker at the moment is Trossard who was sadly injured for todays match, but then again when he is fit Arteta only seems to want to use him as a sub.
Frustrating result. Dominated the first half and should have been at least 2 goals up. Gave a way a stupid goal before half time. Score the penalty and then give away a crazy goal which I cannot forgive. Jorginho wasn't even under any pressure when he received the ball - just a total screw up just after we scored. Also disappointing how we fell apart after it went 2-2 for 20-25 mins. Raya made a mistake on the first goal and his distribution was truly awful. He made a world class save also, but the way he was out of position for that first goal and had to scoop the ball away into danger was Leno like. Odegaard had a stinker - the worst I have seen him after the first 20 minutes and not a game for it to happen. Subs were just wrong. Jesus should have been in the middle and Nketiah off, with ESR given more time That's 4 points dropped through a total lack of concentration the likes of which we STILL haven't eradicated.
This has been an issue for us since the latter Wenger years. It happened then, it happened under Emery too and it's still happening under Arteta. I don't know why we self-sabotage so much or why every mistake we make seems to be self-inflicted/unforced errors, but I'm bored of the same issues always costing us. We cannot expect to compete or win anything if we're going to keep doing this. Arteta's done a good job for us overall, but his inability to solve this issue which has been plaguing us for ages is worrying me. I'm also concerned about his substitutions and management of certain players. He needs to manage these group of players better than he currently is.
Yep I think he'd be a quality signing. I will say though - Arteta is clearly sticking with Nktiah because of what he does in training. But if he's just not doing it on the pitch he needs to be dropped to the bench. He's the type of forward that if he isn't scoring he's not adding much. Jesus should be starting up top. Its simple. That's why it annoyed me soo much when he was subbed but Eddie stayed on. I think Toney & Jesus would offer two vert different but both quality options.
These statistics are alarming. I know part of it is down to injuries, but I do think a lot of it is down to getting rid of Xhaka and not replacing him properly because our midfield doesn’t have much structure and isn’t that balanced. Despite what people say about Havertz, he’s simply not a similar profile to Xhaka and his most ‘effective’ performances for us have been when he's played as a false 9 up front. If we weren’t going to replace Xhaka properly, we should have kept him.
these stats are not that useful this early in the season IMO. We’ve come up against teams that have sat back a lot. Even Utd. We actually created a fair bit against Spurs, the first team to open up. The conversions do need to be better though. It is true to say we look far less fluid this year than our best last year, but we had periods where we looked similar last year too. So did City. Just hope we click into gear soon.
I don't think we created as much as we should have against Spurs at all. In fact, after the penalty we scored in the 54th minute, we didn't test Vicario until Saka's shot in the 89th minute. The point I'm making is that I feel like we are underperforming and even if we use the eye test, we're still not as coherent as last season. Whatever people say about Xhaka, he would always turn up for games like this and we missed him yesterday. I also firmly believe Arteta is underutilising the squad he has at his disposal and isn't getting the best out of the first 11. The positives are the we're still unbeaten despite not playing consistently well, but he and the team need to be doing far better than what we've seen.
Agreed we don’t look fluid. But i would just stop short of calling it a problem because teams do go through periods of things being harder at times. Even the best. Even The Invincibles. If we haven’t found stride after 10-12 games i would be worried. I do think the City game is vital now though in a couple of weeks. We might be 7+ points behind after that game and be more or less out of the title race early. So the pressure is on. That one is far more about the result. I would take an ugly win.
I've said it many times. My hatred of Chelsea is about far more than local bragging rights or historic rivalry. It stems from the fact that they ruined football (what was left of it) permanently and cheated their way to success. They represent everything wrong with modern football and it only appears to have gotten worse since Roman left. Just when you think you've seen it all, they start throwing £100m at every promising 19 year old in world football and use 14 year contracts to fob off FFP. They are a shameless joke of a club with zero dignity and zero history. It has nothing to do with their record against us and everything to do with what they and their fans represent. And, if given a straight choice between you and them for the title, I would choose you every single time. Not at all ashamed to admit it. Hated you more than any other as a kid. That changed in 2004.
The Havertz and Raya signings were both somewhat excessive imo. Neither were really needed that badly and the former is a massively overrated player. Chelsea absolutely fleeced you for him. Combined fees of over £80m (can't recall if the Raya deal was an option or obligation, apologies) - for that money you're on your way for a top quality striker to lead the line, which is what I felt you were lacking most of all. Nketiah certainly isn't the answer and while Jesus is good, he isn't good enough to get you more than top 4. To win the big prizes you'll need better quality up there than both of them. But Arteta prioritised areas you were already quite strong in.
Raya I could understand somewhat because he was always Arteta's first-choice before we went in for Ramsdale in 2021, and the deal wasn't possible back then. Additionally, there's been reports that internally there were concerns about Ramsdale's mentality and whether he's improved enough to be a top-level goalkeeper. After what happened at the back end of last season, I think that is is fair. Raya is also a £3m loan with a £27m option to buy, so the ball is in our court in that sense. But Havertz? I just don't get how the club looked at what we did last season and felt the way to close the gap to City was to sign Havertz. It's not as if there were a plethora of clubs after him either, yet we still committed to paying £65m for him. It's sheer arrogance from Arteta to think he can resurrect his career and turn him into the player people thought he would be, when multiple other managers have tried and couldn't do it. There was enough evidence to show why the opportunity cost of acquiring him wasn't worth it (e.g. 3 years struggling in England), yet we still did it anyway. This is an insane error of judgement that could have disastrous consequences for us. I said after the window shut that we'd had a 6/10 window at best because we hadn't strengthened enough and we hadn't recouped enough in fees for the deadweight. You're not going to catch this City team with a 6/10 transfer window, with no proper centre forward signed, weakening the defence and weakening the midfield with Havertz replacing Xhaka. Feels like we've taken two steps backwards.
