I agree with this. Our injury crisis was unmanageable. No team could have won the league with the level of injuries we had. You can’t just stack a squad 3 deep and keep players happy. That we got to a CL semi final given so many injuries and maintained 2nd in the league is really quite impressive.
I did actually take a look at that - did a fair bit of research and you are right - I can find no team in PL history that ever won the league with the amount of injuries we had.
There Gyokeres thing is kinda ridiculous. Berta went to Portugal - and after many hours of negotiating they agreed a fee of 65+15m add ons. The next day Arsenal sent over said agreement and Sporting came back saying they now wanted 70m+add ons. They sound like an absolute nightmare to deal with.
Only IF any of this is true - I believe little of what comes out of the football media. But if it is true, we should walk away.
Yeah. Feel bad for the player though - he rejected both United and Juventus and burnt his bridges at Sporting by all accounts. As I've said previously I think we could win the league if we signed a TOP LWF. If we poured that 70m into Rodrygo - could this win the league... I believe it would... Rorygo----Havertz------Saka Even so we still need options so if Gyokeres deal does go tits up there's still Sesko, Watkins, Vlahovic, Osimhen.
i am an advocate of Martinelli through the middle and nothing i saw at the tail end of the season when he played there changed my mind. He can do it. He was holding ball up, chasing down defenders and running off the last man.
All in all, it was a poor season. When you have Man U, Spurs, Man City and Chelsea all being really bad you need to take advantage of the season. Liverpool won the league at a canter, we didn't push them at all. You would think coming 2nd the 2 seasons previously the club - namely Arteta - would do everything possible to make that final step. But no. The previous season he complained the squad was too small, he proceeded to get rid of more actual squad members than he brought in, the season just finished and didn't address the issue most Gooners complained about, "what happens if Havertz gets injured next season ?". Well we found out didn't we, that cost us the league, all on the manager, I don't want to hear any nonsense about injuries. We didn't have injuries a couple seasons back and didn't win the league either. tired of the excuses. Then when you see that Eric Ten Hag has won more trophies than Arteta, it hits it home.
To be fair - 'he' (I assume you mean Arteta) is not in charge of either selling or buying. All he can do is OK transfers and agree who to sell. We know Arteta wanted to add a Striker and a LWF because we made bids for Sesko and Madueki and Rodrygo last Summer - and went back in for Sesko in January. I feel like Arteta is getting blaimed for the fact Edu basically left the club in a ****ty position.
Good to see you here hothead - been a looooong time since we were gone .. like 13 years! It's a bit quiet but some of the old guard like Bear are still here. Who knows maybe it can be revived. Did you notice they are now using the same forum format as we used to use back in the day on the other place?
Yeah - many of us came from there to here. Real shame BBC606 ended. Maybe some people will find there way back here. Social media is cack for football discussion.
How can it not be Arteta's fault ?! If he wanted the players we would've got the players.Arteta hasn't had any problem getting the payers he wanted. If the club can spend €45m on a LB we didn't need (Calafiori), €32m on Merino, €116m on Rice, €75m on bloody Havertz, €40m on Timber, €32m on Raya, €52m on Jesus and €70m on Zinchenko and Vieira in the past 3 seasons, its fair to say that he is being backed in the transfer window. He is no longer a Head Coach, as the manager he gets a say in the transfers. More to the point, does anyone seriously think that after the 2022/23 season, leading by 8 points and then running out of steam because we didn't have any squad quality that the club wouldn't back him the next season ?! They absolutely backed him and we had an even better season just falling short by a point. Again, does anyone seriously think if Arteta really wanted a CF last season that one wouldn't bee bought ?! I don't buy it, pun intended.
To be fair, I don't remember the names on this forum, perhaps one or two. Memories will come flooding back when I see the names.
22/23 and 23/24 i d not think we fell short because of a striker. We were banging goals in for fun. If you look at the reason we lost those league it was because we were blowing leads a lot of the time. Last year was different - we had no strikers because they were all injured for long periods! I am of the opinion now that a replacement for Jesus is vital - there is no way we can rely on him staying fit.
Bergkamp the Dutch Master Robin Van Bergkamp Altbouli Sanj Toughnell Toughie Ammaar Kyle A few I remember
Bro it's not 1996 anymore managers don't buy players or even negotiate! This is all done by the sporting director. Arteta clearly stated to the media that he wanted Arsenal to add players. Edu didn't get his targets done in the Summer - then during the January window Jason Ayto failed to land Sesko and Watkins. Blaming Arteta for this nothing short of insane. The Injuries we had and the numerous weird PGMOL decisions couldn't really be mitigated for. It was a super weird Season - in a hypothetical World I bet if we replayed that Season we would hit 85+ points 8/10 times.
