please log in to view this image Venue: Emirates Stadium Date: Saturday 14th December 2024 KO time: 15:00 GMT Overall Record Wins: 112 Losses: 65 Draws: 46 Last six meetings Arsenal 2-1 Everton Everton 0-1 Arsenal Arsenal 4-0 Everton Everton 1-0 Arsenal Arsenal 5-1 Everton Everton 2-1 Arsenal 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. Good opening 25 minutes, we had a few good chances to take the lead, but we've been far too passive and pedestrian against a deep block since. Odegaard, this is the type of game where you need to be earning your money, this is why we have you in this team. We need to play with more urgency and verticality. Need a much better and more incisive second half performance.
After a good start to the second half, it's gone flat and methodical again. Jorginho and Nwaneri on for Rice and Odegaard...hmm...let's see how this goes.
These subs have actually made us worse. There's no chemistry and it's all just so forced. We need to buck our ideas up fast otherwise our title hopes will take another significant set-back.
FT. 0-0. ****ing joke. Honestly. Liverpool didn't play last weekend and have dropped points at home to Fulham today. So what do we do? Draw at Fulham last week and put in a toothless display against Everton at home. Jokers. We are an embarrassment. The subs Arteta made totally killed the game. League is over now. As I said previously, just go for the cups. We're not consistent enough in the league.
I'm all for waiting until the end of the season but it's clear Arteta isn't the man. He isn't learning. He is overthinking it and not platforming or directing the players correctly. There are too many things wrong with us. And the funny thing is, Arteta created most problems and can't understand how to rectify it.
The quality has gone. Is Martineĺi still Arsenal standard ? Will Merino ever be Arsenal standard ? We've been crying out for a decent striker for the last 3 years but Arteta can't see it Weird substitutions today, signs of desperation
22/23 you had the element of surprise as I don't think many teams expected you to be anywhere near as good as you were having just come off the back of three seasons perceived as 'failures'. It seemed the majority of Arsenal fans wanted him sacked after the 21/22 season, so I don't think teams took you all that seriously - and paid a heavy price as a consequence. Last season was the impressive one imo as you were an established threat and a known quantity (plus you had CL football to juggle) and yet no-one could stop you taking City to the wire (again). That imo showed a huge improvement and increase in maturity. But I think the two seasons of chasing City to futility have exhausted you. Arteta looks like he is desperately searching for that one trick that will let you finally out-maneuver them. Maybe this season the huge emphasis on set-pieces was meant to be your ace in the hole? But the price you pay for over-thinking and over-preparing is that football can throw up any number of surprises and while I have no doubt Arteta spent most of the summer over-analysing how to get the better of City, it turns out his real problem this season is a rejuvenated Liverpool and the mess at Chelsea finally resembling a coherent plan. He spent the summer drafting solutions to the wrong problem.
Despite what some people say, and I've been quiet about this for a while, but I am convinced the Havertz signing was the start of the dominoes collapsing. After the 2022/23 season ended, we had built up a positive reputation, good vibes back at the club, playing excellent football and we were back in the CL for the 1st time in 7 years. And yes, the pain of missing out on the title to City was discernible, but there was a rejuvenation and newfound hope at the club that didn't exist for a long, long time. With Xhaka leaving for pastures new and the additional income from finishing 2nd, we had so many options of midfielders to select from. To spend £65m on Havertz to replace Xhaka was utterly criminal. No-one wanted him beforehand. No Arsenal fan clamoured for his signing. Yet we essentially repaid the fee to Chelsea for a player that had been a flop for 3 years and didn't exactly have concrete interest from a tonne of clubs. He wasn't good enough to be Xhaka's replacement; we saw that in the first-half of the season. Second half of last season, I'll be fair. He was very good and made some valuable contributions. But the sample size clearly wasn't enough. Yet the club, in their infinite wisdom, thought that a good 6 months was enough to extrapolate over an entire season - despite Kai showing no evidence of this in his entire career. It was a stupid risk and one that hasn't worked. Kai is a serviceable striker, but he's not got the qualities we need to propel us to a Premier League title. And it was insane that we didn't prioritise sorting this out over the Summer. So he wasn't good enough to be our LCM and isn't good enough to lead our line - we've killed two positions with this signing. Then this Summer...a whole transfer saga for Mikel Merino who we've bought in for £38m. He's a decent player, but does he move the needle? No. Calafiori was a good signing, but appears to be made of glass. £50m is a lot of money for a player like this. I'm not too hopeful he has a long-term future at the club. Then Raheem Sterling on loan from Chelsea? What was the point of this? We tried to cut corners again and it's backfired (again). This brings me onto the main issue I have with Arteta outside of his questionable talent ID - his tactics and in-game management. I genuinely cannot believe that he's turned us into physical duel winning monsters that 'control the ball'. His obsession with controlling the ball has come at the expense of our attacking fluency and players having their individuality coached out of them. He doesn't platform our best players and prioritises conceding no chances above all else. I said this on your board the other day but this iteration of Arteta sets his team up to prioritise conceding little/no chances per game at the cost of having a low variance of chances created in attack. This won't work if you want to win the league. And whilst we do need better quality in attack, the manager isn't getting the most out of these players. We shouldn't be ranked 13th for open play expected goals. That's criminal. Overall, it's a combination of poor recruitment and poor coaching. The issues we're facing now were the issues we faced in 2021/22. We've come full circle. It is worrying that he's still facing the same issues and troubles from 3 years ago due to his squad building and management style. The team should be in his image. If this is what we are 5 years into this 'process', then I don't see him lasting much longer because this current approach is not sustainable and will cause us to slip down the table. I'm telling you. We might be in bigger trouble than people realise.
