please log in to view this image Venue: Emirates Stadium Date: Sunday 12th January 2025 KO time: 15:00 GMT Overall Record Wins: 90 Losses: 101 Draws: 50 Last six meetings Arsenal 2-0 Manchester United Manchester United 0-1 Arsenal Arsenal 3-1 Manchester United Arsenal 3-2 Manchester United Manchester United 3-1 Arsenal Arsenal 3-1 Manchester United please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image
HT. 0-0. Another flat performance where we're 'in control', but just so docile on and off the ball. 0 shots on target. We don't move the ball fast enough and then when we try to get up the pitch, there's no support. We rely on our wide players to take on 3 players, but where's the midfielders to make late runs into the box? We need more risk takers. Injuries seem to be hurting us again. Jesus came off on a stretcher, in tears, and Odegaard looks very uncomfortable and will probably come off for the second half. How many more crucial players need to get injured before the club actually do something and dip in the market for players?
Seriously, the club's negligence to not get off their arses and do something in the transfer market will kill our season. How many more players need to get injured before they realise that our entire season is on the cusp of falling apart?
Out of both cups and you can’t win the league. Your season is done by the middle of January. Time to show Arteta the door?
United had 10 men for like an hour and we couldn't beat them This team are a joke. NLD next, watch us lose that one too. ****ing useless.
He's not the only issue, but he should be under huge pressure now. The domestic cups were our best chance to win something and we're out of both by mid January, which was the case the last few seasons too. I just don't see where we go from here tbh. I said if we lost today, that things may turn extremely toxic and I think that's what's going to happen.
We needed extra time and an own goal to beat Tamworth ffs...no way we winning the NLD at your place. We've only won at your place 3 times in the last 32 years. Get a grip man ... you is beginning to sound like a spurs fan
I'm just rapidly losing faith in the club. Arteta's going to get a lot of flack for today, which he deserves, but it's so much more than him. Everyone saw these issues coming a mile away and the club didn't act when they were meant to. Now we're 12 days into the winter transfer window and we look no closer to getting anywhere. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail, as the saying goes. I predicted us to lose to Newcastle and Man United (both results 2-1 - Ok, didn't get the scoreline right, but outcome was the same). We will lose to you lot as well. Honestly, I don't think you understand just how poor our attack is right now. These are the worst forwards I've ever seen at Arsenal in my entire life. I'm not even joking. Saka's brilliance was masking so many deficiencies. Look at us without him. We're finished. Arsenal 1-3 Tottenham Hotspur.
Another shocking performance Oh for a class striker Havertz and Trossard are pathetic Odegaard and Rice are a shadow of what they were Arteta seems to just carry on hoping these players will improve
At the start of the season, I thought you’d win the league comfortably. Havertz has been an horrendous signing, not the sort you make when trying to establish yourself as champions of England. Surely that’s on Arteta? I just don’t think he’s a top level coach and last season was probably you peaking as a team. It looks like you are on your way down, now. You still have the nucleus of a very good team and with the right new manager and just 2 or 3 top signings you could easily be in a position to challenge again next season.
If it was up to me, I don't think he could have any complaints if the club got rid of him. However, I don't think they will - so long as he keeps us in the top-4. That's what their main objective is, everything else is secondary. In terms of the fanbase, I think he will have one more season after this before the vast majority start turning on him. If by the end of the 2025/26 season, the fans in the stadium have began to turn on him and we've not won any major honours, then I think he's a goner. His current contract is only until 2027 too, so it would make sense to get rid with 1 year left on his deal. But yeah, it's not looking good and I don't think things are going to improve in the immediate future, either.
Arteta has been given plenty of money to spend. None of Calafiori, Merino and Sterling were crucial signings in the summer, but that's where he chose to invest. The combined transfer fees and wages of those three would have given you a package to sign a top class ST, but for what feels like the tenth window, Arteta still bizarrely deems that as surplus to requirements. Take it from one who has seen it so many times at Spurs. Yes we'd love it if the whole team clicked, played beautiful football and scored picture perfect goals, but sometimes when the team is below par (you) or simply crap (us under Jose and Conte), you cannot underestimate the importance of that one player who can smell a goal and convert every scrap and crumb of a half chance that comes their way. Kane was that for us for his last 3 years at the club. He single handedly kept us in the top half of the table competing for Europe.
We can definitely talk about all those players, and I agree that the latest Summer transfer window has to go down as one of the worst in modern history for us. But Havertz is the signing for me that has totally killed us. I've said this before, but Arteta choosing to die on this Havertz hill will be his undoing. He was originally brought in to be Xhaka's replacement, we realised he simply couldn't fulfil that role, then he showed he had his uses as our main centre-forward in the second half of the 2023/24 season. But the club decided to rely on that small sample size of good form (compared to the previous 3 years where he was inconsistent at Chelsea) than go and get a bonafide striker with a reliable track record of bagging goals. So we've spent £65m and £300k p/w wages on a player who isn't good enough in midfield and isn't good enough up front. And it has been entirely self-inflicted. There's no angle you can look at positively with Havertz in regards for planning in the future. Regarding this most recent Summer, I was hearing that we had to be a bit careful with how much we spent due to PSR and the fact that we'd spent quite a lot during the time we were out of the Champions League (especially due to the lack of sales). So there was some books balancing that was required. Which is fine, but then why spend the limited money we had on Calafiori and Merino - neither of whom were essentials for us - over a centre-forward? If you'd said to me right now that the £80m for those 2 would be spent on a top attacking player, I'd have bitten your hand off for it. The simple fact is we haven't prioritised sorting out the attack enough. The club takes too many unnecessary gambles, and by the time they realise they have to fix the mistakes they've created, they're already playing catch-up to the clubs whose recruitment and key decision-makers are two steps ahead of us. We've snookered ourselves into a corner and I don't know how we get out of it.
Also, when I look at the forwards Arteta's either utilised and/or signed himself, I worry about his talent ID in forward players. Saka - already at the club, was lucky he was here. The only world-class attacker we have. Look at the difference without him. Martinelli - already at the club, was lucky he was here. He's not kicked on since 2022/23, but even if we sell him, we'd make a huge profit as we only signed him for £6m. No progress for 2 years under Arteta is worrying, though. Havertz - already discussed to death. Awful signing that has completely ****ed us. Trossard - his initial impact was good for 1.5 years, but he's been genuinely horrible this season. Not good enough. We shouldn't be extending his contract at all. Jesus - £45m we signed him for and he's not proven to be value for money. Sterling - last-second loan deal and barely plays. Not good enough anyway. Then I look at the forwards we were thinking of buying, like Mudryk, Calvert-Lewin, Nunez, Vlahovic, Jonathan David, Gouiri...none of these are players that would get us to the level we need. So, whilst we've clearly not prioritised reinforcing the attack enough, if Arteta had his way and got these players, would we really be much better off anyway? Because that selection of players doesn't convince me.
Dawned on me that 2/3 of our attack consists of players that finished 12th for Chelsea lol. The only positive is that Sterling was a loan and Chelsea are paying bulk of his wages, so at least we're not stuck with him. I'd do anything to go back to the Summer of 2023 and block that Havertz move. That's the day this project went backwards.
So we sign Havertz and then go on to get our second highest-ever points total and highest-ever goals for tally... and yet we went backwards? We're not worse this season because of Havertz. Many of our players are playing worse than last season (Odegaard, Trossard) and we have far more players missing our games than last season. And added to that we got rid of four attackers who contributed a lot of minutes last season (Vieira, ESR, Nelson, Nketiah) and replaced all four of them with just Sterling who never plays. We went from having a ludicrous bench to now being threadbare. Havertz is not good enough to be our first choice striker, but he's also not the reason we're worse than last year. Offensively we have bit part players that no other top team in Europe would start in their front three. They're the sorts of players that you pad out an attack with that already has worldies in it. They perform when the team is already performing, but they don't help the team perform better. Take Suarez out of the SSS and Sterling and Sturridge would have been far worse. Martinelli is 24 this year. He's never going to be a world class player. He's a useful squad option to bring on with half an hour to go against tired legs. Havertz is a bit of an enigma with no ideal position. Probably best as a #10 with Odegaard as the #8. An expensive enigma. Apart from Saka, we have no-one up else in the squad who is a genuine goal threat. Surely even with PSR we have the capacity to sign Osimhen and Williams right now. Would 'only' be about £110m in pure fees. Which we must have available in PSR even with wages on top. And there's no way we couldn't afford it in terms of raw funds. Osimhen might be a dick (apparently?!) but at least he'd sort out us out for goals for the next few years.
You're right; it's not solely because of Havertz. But it is partly. Because the manager decided to go on an ego trip and thought he could rescue the career of a once-promising wonderkid, rather than utilise that money better and sensibly. Our transfers and decisions since then in the transfer market have been deeply questionable. Havertz for £65m and £300k p/w wages had to be success. He simply had to. And he hasn't been. His record in the big games is shocking. And close to half of his goals this season have come against lower league opposition in the Carabao Cup. We over performed xG last season and Havertz had a purple patch, something that he'd never shown in the years prior. It was a stupid decision to sign him, and now we are stuck with a player, who isn't good enough in midfield or attack, but he will stay because of the financial outlay on him and because Arteta's obsession with him. Moving away from his vanity project for a moment, let's call it as it is. Major trophies are won by being excellent at football. They aren't won by deciding games on 'fine margins' or 'adapting to game states'. You need a deadly attack and a watertight defence. Arsenal have absolutely no attacking identity. In possession, we are barely a top-half side. We can't counterattack or transition, and we are play the same predictable patterns that make it easy for teams to defend against. His biggest flaws as a coach are now damaging us deeply and, although a couple of signings would help, my fear is that Arteta's limitations will always be our undoing when push comes to shove. The construction of this squad is by and large what he wanted. The style of play is what he wanted. The decision to not buy an out and out striker in the last two summer windows, that was down to him and how he wanted to allocate those funds. Now he's crying we don't have efficiency in the box. His talent ID is troubling and his system doesn't get the best out of our players. You can talk about Odegaard, Trossard etc losing form, but the foundation of this team from top to bottom is not stable enough. Lack of stability will lead to dysfunction, and that's what we're seeing now. We know what needs to be done, but we're never going to do it until it's too late.
