Not come here to gloat just wanted to say kudos to the many thousands of your fans who made the expensive and lengthy trip out to that pathetic excuse for a football stadium. They'll be hurting the most tonight. Sorry, did I say tonight? Silly me, I meant this morning as it's already 2am out there. Not that UEFA gives a ****.
The farce surrounding the stadium and the players was a joke even in itself. The performance just made it worse.
Yes the performance was disgraceful. So many players looked like they didn't want to be there. You played with a lot of hunger and passion at season's start but it faded badly as the calendar ticked into Spring resulting in you blowing top 4 and tonight. Form matters. Chelsea came into this game in a decent run of it. You didn't. I personally would question the manager if he is unable to motivate his team to at least give the appearance that they care, which shouldn't be that difficult given the enormity of the fixture and the fact that the vast majority of them will never play for a bigger club than Arsenal.
Do you know what. At the moment I'd just like to see players like Nelson, Willock, Saka, Smith-Rowe, and Nketiah get more games. Because we ain't buying any top quality this summer and some of the ****e we have in this team clearly aren't good enough either.
A Chelsea victory wasn’t exactly unimaginable, but the way we capitulated was. The players were giving it large before the game saying they were ready to give their all and were focused on bringing the trophy home. Their lack of experience in a game like this was telling because they didn’t manage the game well at all after going to 1-0 down. We panicked and allowed Chelsea too much time on the ball as we frantically pressed for an equaliser, overcommitting. We should have calmed it down and taken it from there rather than going all guns blazing. Emery still has my support for now, but he’s got a big job on his hands with a minuscule budget. He has to find a way of changing the weak mentality in these players that is still prevalent from Wenger’s latter years too. Gut-wrenching to lose our biggest game in 15 years to London rivals in such a meek way.
My biggest fear is I just don't see how we get out of this rut we are in. We have an owner unwilling to invest, we have an overpaid bunch of mercenaries, our squad is unbalanced, we don't have much money to spend anyway and these players still have a very feeble, weak-minded mentality, which Cech tactfully told us in his pre-match quotes. With Newcastle getting Qatari owners, Wolves investing big, Everton investing big, in addition to the other clubs who already are miles ahead of us in the top 6, we are at serious risk of falling into midtable obscurity in the coming years. I want to be positive, I have tried to be positive all season, but I just don't see us getting out of this mess anytime soon, unless Emery performs miracles with the players next season. We are a fallen giant.
Spot on. We are turning into Newcastle, who I regularly thought were the most mismanaged team in English football. I mean even Leeds seem to have some of their mojo back. We are heading for mid table and there’s nothing our fans can do about it. I’ve grown to be disillusioned with everything premier league. I mean we essentially have to sell our soul to a billionaire owner just to compete - is that even what we really want ultimately??
While I agree with this, not one of those players is a defender, so not sure how much it would turn our fortunes.
I'm so ****ing disappointed with the way we lost that game last night. We were ****. As mantis has pointed out we were so naive when we went 1-0 down, chasing the game trying to get straight back in it when we had time to build, and then we went and conceded again. The players were mentally weak and lacked the ability and know how to engineer a way to get back into the game. It showed up all of our weaknesses in the worst way, in the worst game possible. To be honest, this team don't really deserve Champions League football, because we are simply not good enough. The problem now is that how do we turn this around ? Because Silent Stan isn't going to invest and with a budget of £40m we can either buy one decent CB or 2-3 mediocre players. None of which are going to turn our fortunes around. As has been mentioned, all we can hope for is that Emery can work miracles with the squad he's got, but how realistic is that ? ****ing deflated with this **** this morning
Keep Leno, Bellerin, Sokratis, Holding, Torreira, Auba and Laca. Try and sign a few of Cahill, Rabiot, Godin, Robben, Ribery, Tierney. Then use the youngsters for the rest. No idea if any of those freebies would even want to move to us. But I'm tired of signing middle of the road ****e when we could just use youngsters and achieve the same result (ie absolutely nothing).
I mentioned before that we should try and get Godin and Rabiot. They are both quality players. Also agree that we should try and get Robben or Ribery, they are proven winners and would improve this team no end, even in the twilight of their careers. With the few decent players we do have, we could put out a very good first XI that would get us top 4 next season. And then build from there. One thing that is certain at the moment, is that this current team are doing **** all.
We have no choice. We cannot sign proven, young talent on a mediocre budget. We must raid the academy, try to get free signings, and bank on getting lucky with unproven or older more experienced talent in the twilight of their careers. I'm not convinced by the latter idea. Lichsteiner was a disgrace this season and should never play again. If I were Emery I would dispense with: Ozil, Xhaka, Mustafi, Kos, Licht, Monreal and Mhkitaryan. Replace with: 1 proper CB and maybe one academy prospect (Mavrapanos springs to mind), Invest in a winger (Ramsey is also gone). Iwobi isn't that great. Play AMN in midfield. Invest in a another FB and integrate one academy prospect. So we're looking at around 3-4 players in the summer and a much more streamlined squad. I think we are far too bloated with wages at the moment and it's hurting our ability to sign new players as well.
I would spend a lot of energy looking to move Ozil, Miki, Xhaka, Litch, and Kosc out! If there is no money then we need to invest in youth. Get a top experienced CB, a young dynamic creative player to replace Ozil. Keep Laca and Auba, and let the young players express themselves. Iwobi, Willock, AMN, Torreira, the 2 boys in germany should be recalled. Let's rebuild. It will take time but we will have to be patient and trust youth. For me we need PACE and POWER in the team combined with fearlessness in youth. The fans will also have a big role to play in not unsettling these boys let they have done Iwobi at times. We will need to create an atmosphere to let them play with freedom. If there is indeed no money. This is the direction I would go with.
We already sold to a billionaire owner and he is the worst possible one bar the glazers and has handicapped us so that its impossible to compete. Sent from my GM1911 using Tapatalk
This is 100% one of the main issues. Ozil surely must now realise he has no future at the club any longer? He was a disgrace last night.