(The not-so-temporary quite-official) Gooner Thread (Part 3)

I'm actually not. Had Gazidis still been here you still had this weird split between football matters and player recruitment between Sanellhi and Mislantat. After Gazidis left Sanellhi and Vikram got promoted to own the football and commercial leadership respectively. It put Mslintat in an awkward spot working under, not alongside Sanellhi.

Mslintat joined with Wenger and Gazidis in charge and the ownership split. Now both of those gentlman are gone and ownership is 100% KSE, that's a significant amount of change and it doesn't surprise me that it's left someone with their nose out of joint.

Sounds interesting... I'm still worried even if all that is true though, simply because of the fact that Mislintat is an excellent scout with a track record of success. 

After a positive and fresh feeling to begin with this season, things have darkened a tad in the last month.

Chelsea this weekend has me very worried.

If we have any designs on top 4 this is really a must-win now. I am starting to think the top 4 might be beyond us this season. 

Chelsea and Arsenal battling for 4th + the Europa League makes things interesting. If one of us comes 4th but the other one wins the Europa League, it's likely that the team who came 4th won't play. Chelsea did this to Sp*ds a few years back.

Looking at this years distribution of the Europa and Champions League winners path ways they didn't increase the number of teams from their region, but rather they improved the entry placings of teams per the following:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%9319_UEFA...

Essentially until Arsenal and Chelsea are knocked out of Europa League then 4th placed's ECL spot is not gauranteed.

Marcotti explains our transfer situation: 

https://global.espn.com/soccer/club/arsenal/359/blo...

Basically all our money is tied up in Auba, Ozil and Mkhi's wages at the moment. 

Yes i can't quiet see us finishing 4th, seems like groundhog day again. Really hoping we can still some performances together. i honestly can't believe we havnt got a decent centre back in

I am worried. Huge loss. Sanellhi is a guy who goes out and buys the big, already known players with a tonne of cash. Mislintat is someone who relies on analytics and data to get value for money buys who can potentially later sell for big $$.

Which do you think suits a club like Arsenal currently?..

The wheels have really fallen off now. We will likely finish 6th. Emery seems be a bit of a fraud; I still see no distinct style in the way we play, and he's forced out both Ramsey and now Ozil.

Emery a fraud? What a laugh. Three European titles.

I think we're halfway through year 1, in which we've all acknowledged this squad needs 3 seasons worth of windows to correct it.

I also think we were backing Emery precisely 1 month and 1 day ago before we lost away to SOTON. Since then we've had more losses, found out we can't spend money (not on Emery), and now we're battling to get results (somewhat on Emery, but look at our squad, can you see a winger in there?).

I think the unbeaten run set unrealistic expectations on this squad, and that top 4 was an option.

While I agree that analytics/data making value for money purchases is what's needed, that was meant to be changing post stadium. If we're still stuck needing to operate like that what was the point? Why did we sell our best players to pay down stadium debt only to need to continue in that same vain?

Bit early to write off the manager. It was always going to take more than a season to sort out the mess we were in and the instability in the back room after what looked like a good structure was set up is very worrying. Hard to blame Mislintat when he spends his time finding possible gems who will on average go up in value only to be told we're skint and can't buy anyone. 

Despite the unbeaten run, this season hasn't been much of an improvement yet. With a couple of exceptions,  essentially we've beaten the teams we should have, and lost to the ones we always lose to. Only the Spurs game really had gone massively against expectations. 4th is looking probably out of reach this season and certainly will be if we lose this week.

For this weekend I'd like to see us play our best players in a formation we know they can play in.

To me, that looks like

                     Lacazette

            Iwobi     Ozil    Aubamayang

                  Xhaka Torreira

Monreal Koscielny Sokratis Bellerin

                        Leno

Get Torreira breaking up the play again, give Ozil the chance to weave his magic, and have Iwobi and Auba run their tit's off coming back in defence. Oh, and let Sokratis and Koscielny bark orders and get our teams sh*t together.

At Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs and City you see a clearly defined style. At Arsenal; what the fudge is our style of play? It's all over the place. That is why I am losing faith in Emery. There is no clear plan.

You can put up with the dross Wenger served us for years yet Emery doesn't get more than 6 months to be called a fraud? He's won more European titles than Pochettino, Klopp and Sarri while Klopp and Pochettino finished 8th and 5th in their first seasons in the Premier League. He's also inherited a very average squad with a clear culture problem. 

While he might not be the best man for the job long-term at least give him a chance, he's got runs on the board and is a lot better than Arteta would have been. 

Yea that's super knee-jerk valeo, got to give the man some time, he's barely had a chance to mould the squad into his vision - one complete transfer window, at a time when he'd barely got a look at the players inherited, and now the 2nd window with no cash. I say he needs at least 1 year from now, at the absolute least. Guys like Gary Neville reckon he needs a series of transfer windows before he can be judged, it's hard to argue with that. 

If Liverpool and Man City had your attitude I don't think Klopp and Guardiola would still be there, for example... 

He comes in, gives a big spiel about how he knows how to utilise our current players, and then cuts Ramsey and wants Ozil turfed. Did it really take him half a season to know that Ozil isn't a high energy player? Did it really take him that long to work out what kind of player Ramsey is?

I don't get it. It doesn't add up.

Wenger got us in the Champs League for 20 years straight on a shoestring, so don't even bother to compare the two.

It's fine to say he needs transfer windows - but the reality of Arsenal right now is we have no money to spend. We need someone who can implement a defined style to offset some of our weaknesses. He hasn't shown he can do that.

Unlike Liverpool, we aren't selling any players for crazy amounts to Real or Barca in order to fill spaces; so you can't compare us to Klopp's side either.

At the start of the season I saw a lot of positives because I thought the style would bed in. But it hasn't. He talked of a high pressing, high energy game - have we seen that? In one or two games for 20-30 mins at a time, sure, but not consistently.

I call him a fraud because what he speaks about, and how the team actually plays, are two completely different things.

Pretty much disagree with all of that.

I know that's a pretty blanket statement but when I started typing a response I realised I can't just sit here and debate point by point when ultimately it's a "agree to disagree" situation, as I can't see either of us changing our minds on this one. 

Here's some perspective from the Chelsea thread about bedding in as a Manager in the EPL, that personally gives me some comfort;

So we're 41 points, in 5th. Not great, but not bad by any stretch.

Are you guys still getting Denis Suarez from Barca, or has that one cooled off?

We're skint and have no money to make signings. The money is primarily tied up in wages to players who are not in the playing side.

Not really sure. It seems Emery wants him but money is such an issue right now. It would need to be a loan.

Him, Carrasco and Banega seem to be the three that keep going around. But we can only loan players in this window which is obviously an issue. 

Suarez seems most likely. I know Barca want a gauranteed sale at the end but they'd be more willing to let him go than Sevilla and whomever Carrasco is playing for.

Yeah, I'd read about the loan situation which is why I thought the Suarez link had legs. Similar to them initially loaning Deulofeu to the Prem when he was on the fringes of their squad. 

Seem like three slightly different targets though, with Suarez an attacking mid (though given he's schooled at Barca he'd be quite versatile), Carrasco a wide forward and Banega more of a deep lying passer.

Did he (Suarez) spend enough time on Man City's books to gain homegrown status?

Kosc with the shoulder! ahaha magic!

wow. 2 nil up at half time. Not sure if we totally deserve that much of lead, but we have out played them in many areas. one area I want us to improve on is playing out from the back. we seem to give away the ball in our defensive third often.

Anyway, big 2nd half coming. COYG!

We haven't looked that good but happy with the lead. Chelsea looking good on attack but just missing the finish. Hopefully Giroud doesn't come on to punish us. Nice to see him get a good reception from the fans when he was warming up and having his name chanted.

eish, if anything, we have got worse at playing out from the back now. 

this is like a practice match of attack v defence. arsenal are offering nothing. 

Kosc putting his manhood on the line to block that rocket from Barkley. Legend. 

Oh no. Elneny on for Hector. looks like hector has got a knee injury. shark. 

Bellerin off. Doesn't look good.

What's the story with Monreal? Is he coming back from injury or out of favour? He's been one of our most consistent defenders for the last few years.

still injured I think and still a couple of weeks away from being fit. 

Nice way to bounce back from the loss at West Ham and we're back in 5th :)

shark hot. well done gentlemen. huge 3 points and a fudgeing clean sheet!!! 

You lot ought to have scored a couple more today, scoreline flatters us.

Bellerin looked to be in quite a bit of pain, nothing too serious I hope.

Yesssssssssss I'll have some of that, much-needed performance.

Deep for swathes of the game after an excellent beginning, but the defenders individually were excellent when we needed it, our positioning on the incoming crosses was solid all day. Loved Kolasinac's performance, in a back 4 this time brumbys! 

What a finish from Lacazette.

Bellerin's injury is devastating. I'm assuming he's done for the season at this point... we lose so much attacking verve with Lichtsteiner. I reckon we let Maitland-Niles loose there, or even go looking for a loan this month. 

Bellerin is goneski: https://twitter.com/firmino_esq/status/10867016925...

That aside - we really needed that result, that'll lift some heads so hopefully we can gather a bit of momentum again. A couple of extra bodies coming in would help too... especially given the vision above.

goodness gracious me that is a horrible sight

him and holding both out with that then, what a terrible stroke of luck, both players were looking excellent under the new management

That was an encouraging performance. Amazing what happens when you play 4 at the back, start your best DM, and have your 2 world class strikers leading the line! Glad we got the job done. As much as Chelsea pressed in that 2nd half I felt fairly confident we'd be OK. We've been mostly exposed on the break this year, but when we're hunkered down we normally do OK, especially knowing they wern't exactly getting creative with their attack.

Gutted for Bellerin, kid's just come back in and playing well then boomfah. Hopefully he, Rob, and Welbz will all come back stronger from this. 

Given your options for the rest of the season are Jenkinson, AMN, and Lichsteiner I'd be expecting us to go into the market for a RB ahead of someone like Suarez. That said, I'd love to see Jenko get a few EPL matches under his belt. He might not have the same attacking ability as Hector but he's probably equal on his defensive duties.

Well... they defied belief... what a performance to win at the Saints

Any idea if any pubs in Hamilton will have the FA Cup match on Saturday morning? Tempted to pop along.

Great game, just a shame that the refs had to tarnish it with that horrific missed PI call.

As a Pats hater (aka a sensible human being) I'll be backing McVay's boys to vanquish Brady and co, hopefully putting an end to the nonsense 'underdog Patriots' narrative that has emerged over the course of the playoffs.