There was a time not so long ago when Arsenal were a Cup winning side playing Champions league football. In 2015, after a thumping 4-0 victory against Aston Villa in the FA Cup final, we were in a position to build from this success and make that summit push for the title. Arguably, we were about 3 players away from making a really serious challenge for the league.
The 2015 summer window was one of the worst in recent memory. We made just one signing, a goalkeeper in Petr Čech and failed to add a single outfield player. To exacerbate this even further, the club decided to let go of Wojciech Szczęsny on loan (and eventually permanently) who has since gone on to develop to become one of the best goalkeepers in the world.
This 15/16 season was when Santi Cazorla’s injury issues started. Cazorla was a vital component of Arsenal’s cog. The partnership with Francis Coquelin gave us a real spine in the middle which allowed us to finish the 14/15 season strongly. Unfortunately, 2015/16 was also when Coquelin’s injury issues began.
Despite not signing a single outfield player in 2015, Arsenal had a fantastic start to the season and with other teams also slipping up, we were favorites for the title on New Year’s day. This was a great time for Arsenal to add quality in January. Much as Olivier Giroud was underrated, he was never the striker to lead us to a title. What does Arsenal do? We signed Mohamed Elneny for around £5m. When you combine both windows, we spent a grand total of £15m, a total lack of ambition.
Let’s be real, Arsenal had the money to spend this season – Wenger deserves the blame partly cause he was too loyal to certain players. On the other hand, we weren’t decisive in the negotiations table. Too many transfers being dragged on and collapsing in the end. The lack of good squad depth in key areas cost us the title. Sure, we finished 2nd on the last day of the season and celebrated St.Tottertingham’s day, but it papered over the obvious cracks.
In the summer of 2016, Arsenal showed more ambition than the previous year – we spent close to £100m on signings, bringing in Shkodran Mustafi, Granit Xhaka and Lucas Perez. Whilst Xhaka has been a mainstay in the team, the other two have been far from distinguished, Lucas even less so then Mustafi. Francis Cagigao had spoken to an agent about the fact that Lucas was a ‘mid-table player’ and Mustafi hadn’t featured in the scout’ list of recommendations. Both these signings were through Stat DNA and while we shouldn’t look down at something this revolutionary, the men behind decisions should be held accountable – Wenger, Ivan Gazidis and Jason Rosenfeld all culpable.
After a good start to the season, the frailties of the squad was exposed. Cazorla was ruled out for the rest of the season with a serious injury. What started off as a potential title race against Chelsea became a battle for top 4, only this time we even failed to achieve that. While the famous FA Cup final win against eventual Champions Chelsea papers over the cracks, Gazidis said that our failures would be the ‘catalyst for change.’
In the summer of 2017, we brought in Alexandre Lacazette for over £50m. However, we failed to back this up by bringing in a central defender or a long term Cazorla replacement and whilst there were games this season we played some really pretty stuff at the Emirates, the away form went to bonkers – just 4 away league wins all season.
It is a culture that has continued since – it goes beyond personnel, the players just stopped believing they can see out these games. Just think about it, the same team beat Milan away from home comfortably in the Europa league and in the subsequent season beat Napoli and Valencia who are both as tricky as most Premier league away games.
From 2015, Arsenal have been crying out for a world class striker to play with the likes of Mesut Özil, Alexis Sanchez and Aaron Ramsey. Fact of the matter is Lacazette failed to live up to it. While there are some admirable qualities in him, Lacazette is still yet to even touch 15 goals a season in the league which is something Olivier Giroud who took a lot of stick managed to do consistently. We need to cut out sentiment.
Sven Mislintat, Huss Fahmy and Raul Sanllehi were all hired later that year as Ivan kept his ‘catalyst for change’ promise. In the January of 2018, we lost arguably our best player in Alexis Sanchez and replaced him with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. As part of the exchange deal for Alexis, we brought in Henrikh Mkhitaryan who was on an exorbitant wage himself.
Paying Özil £350k per week has become one of the worst decisions the club has made. It was a consequence of the club’s culture of not dealing with contracts in time. Fewer teams play with conventional number 10’s and that coupled with Özil’s decline mean’t that a huge portion of our wage bill was committed to a player that subsequent coaches haven’t backed anywhere close to Wenger did.
One more point here to note is that Arsenal did not have any first team wingers. We committed well over £100m on Aubameyang and Lacazette, whilst losing Serge Gnabry, Theo Walcott and Oxlade Chamberlain between 2016 to early 2018. There is a big difference between signing good individual players and building a squad. I personally felt in some instances we could have integrated youth better as well. We lost Serge Gnabry, Donyell Malen and Ismael Bennacer, three absolutely top talents today for virtually nothing.
The rest of the season was marked by a lot of anger from fans on Wenger and much as I love and respect him, I wanted change and we did get it. Amidst all the farewells, Arsenal were 2 years in a row without Champions league football. In 2018, the team LED BY IVAN GAZIDIS made the wrong appointment in Unai Emery. Let’s not get it twisted, we did not do too bad in his first season but he was definitely not the right man for a number of reasons.
People are very quick to jump on Raul Sanllehi’s back, but we signed the likes of Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Stephan Lichtsteiner under Sven. Signing Sokratis for £17.6 million was a dreadful decision. He was 30 and had a huge decline the previous season at Dortmund. While Matteo Guendouzi and Lucas Torreira are good buys, they are still to establish themselves as guaranteed first team starters.
When you look at it, bar Bernd Leno who was an excellent buy, not one player from that window is a first team starter and that is a issue. With Gazidis leaving the club, Sanllehi became the main man, which led to Mislintat leaving. Personally, much as everyone created a hype for Sven, in hindsight he was more a miss than a hit.
It was in January, 2019 that for the first time Sanllehi really had a big say in transfers so those saying that Raul is the reason we’re in a mess aren’t looking at things objectively at all. In February, Arsenal were set to finish 7th/8th, but Unai brought back Ramsey into the team which made a huge difference in how we played.
Let’s also give Unai some credit for those wins against Napoli and Valencia in the Europa league. The truth about Emery was that he was a good coach for cup competitions – when it came for planning individual games, his pragmatism worked. But in the league, changing system and style of play every other game absolutely destroyed us and sucked the life out of our players.
Truth be told, we had lost our identity of playing good football in 2017, a few beautiful team goals at the Emirates will not change anything. With Ramsey leaving the club, coupled with Özil’s decline, we lost that X factor in the middle. I still backed Emery even after the Europa league loss as I genuinely believed that the squad had too many holes.
Last summer, on a ‘Europa league budget’ UNDER SANLLEHI – we managed to sign Kieran Tierney, Nicolas Pépé, Gabriel Martinelli, William Saliba and David Luiz. 4 of these 5 are set to become mainstays in our squad. I highly doubt we would have even moved for Luiz if not for Laurent Koscielny’s tantrums, but we wanted to sign an experienced defender and we did so even if it came at a pretty exorbitant price. Dani Ceballos was brought on a loan and whilst he hasn’t really established himself, Arteta seems to favor him over certain others.
Let’s not rewrite history, Arsenal were on a steady decline under Emery which started end of April last season and continued into this one. We were conceding way too many shots (30 against Watford for example) and while I am not a fan of looking too much into xG for individual games, it always catches up with you over time. Emery had to go.
We find ourselves where we are today not because of one individual. It is a combination of poor decision making from Wenger to Gazidis to Mislintat, Emery, etc. EVERYONE has had a role to play in the mess we are in today. There is also some bad luck with injuries. Failure has become inbuilt into the culture of this club, that is the reality – it will not vanish overnight.
I am not a fan of Stan Kroenke either and ultimately he is the man hiring everyone else. However, he isn’t going anywhere no matter what. So we need to focus now on better decision making from the footballing side of things. They have wasted the club’ resources over the last years without a clear plan. It is time to work with what we have and look for a viable solution.
Most of Arsenal’s issues this season stem from defense and midfield. I want to make one thing absolutely clear, there’s a lot of players in this Arsenal squad I like, but my issue is with the composition of the squad. The lack of variety in midfield is really concerning. There’s ‘playmakers’, too many of them who are ‘OKAY’ defensively and ‘OKAY’ at creating.
What we need is specialized profiles. A top defensive midfielder who can play alone, a specialized #8/#10 hybrid who can impact in the final third and solid ball winning box to box player. We have absolutely none of these. The midfield is what holds the team together. We also need a top centre back, someone to partner Saliba and take this team up a level. Sometimes as a centre back you can blame the system, but certain errors have been so blatant.
Arteta hasn’t been here anywhere near long enough to instill his ideas in. Sure, you can constructively criticize him for poor in game management, but he NEEDS TIME. We saw how he used Bukayo Saka as a central midfielder to great effect. I’m 100% certain he has a lot of great ideas, but needs time, transfer windows and BACKING FROM US FANS to implement them.
We cannot be a hire and fire club like Chelsea. They have had a really good group of players that new managers can come in an make an immediate impact. Arsenal need to build. There is no point looking at the past now and regretting. We have to focus on the now. It will likely take at least 2 years for Arsenal to get back and build a more complete squad. Arteta has a clear vision – if you think it is too soon to call him a great coach, it is also too early to write him off. Managerial change isn’t getting us anywhere now.
We have an excellent set of youngsters. I wouldn’t be against the club selling Lacazette and Aubameyang to invest in other areas and balance out the squad. We were doing well before the lockdown – the injuries coupled with contractual uncertainty hasn’t helped our cause. There is going to be some pain, but intuitively I feel really confident that Arteta knows what is to be done and will get it right. Everyone says ‘Back the process’ but flinches at the first sign of defeat.
My main reason for writing this piece is that our problems run way beyond one or two individuals – it is a multitude of poor decisions over the years that have caused the club to be where we are today. The culture of failure is going to take time to fully overcome. We have two choices, one is to continue pointing fingers at people, or two we back the process whilst also holding people accountable for their decisions constructively. I for one, fall in the latter. I know this is a very long piece, but I just needed to get some things off my chest. Thank you for your patient reading.
Thank you for this piece, i find it telling and on point, we should hold everyone accountable but give Arteta time to build his own team, yes we do have alot of dead wood, mediocre playera for sure, and until i read this piece, i weighed Sven more than Raul..but then again you have put my mind to rest and realised actually Raul has done atleast abetter job when it comes to signings, Fact is we need that money, like you put it..we need to invest heavily in a central defender to partner William as we wait for Dino,Mari and Holding or Chambers to play in the cup games or deputise, we beed a solid DM true and if Parttey was to come, i would say to God be the glory, plus an 8 and another box to box…but the question remains…as other clubs are acting smart and quick so that the manager gets time to work on his squad..we are just playing catch up amd looking on..this is what kills us, we need atleast one marquee signing as astatement before even the season ends…
Time to right the season off, sell the big names who have their eyes on who may want to buy them rather than putting a shift in.
We may need 2 years to build but the youth are there, don’t slip up again and let they move to Europe and become class players. Build the team, Martinelli, willock sako Saliba are our future build them around Mari. guendouzi, torreira let them gel together add Frazer and pepe on the wings and we are getting there, big strong midfielder in the transfer window and without the distraction of europa league next season it will give them a good season to learn their trade.
Great Article,
But it’s not Rocket Science when it comes to purchasing players I think what has been forgotten in the process is Character believe it or not there are good Players in the Championship that would do a better Job than those at Arsenal you can have the best technical players but you need a Player that rolls his sleeves up and says to his teammates are you up for this.
One team where I would take at least four of there players to Arsenal are Wolves prime example of very good buys with obviously a much better scouting Network that obviously checks out the Character so that player can fit in the team that becomes part of the cog in Team but most of all Team Spirit!
True
Great point Musa..we need a box to box player and an aggressive and intelligent defensive midfielder like Partey..if he were to come. Ozil and Lacazette as much as I love him, has to go. The earlier this decisions are made the better for the team . Teams are already buying for next season and here we are indecisive again.
A wonderful piece. I never thought any other person feel this way.
I think this is a great piece. You are spot on about what’s ailing Arsenal. I agree that Arteta needs time to rebuild the club. I believe he can succeed at Arsenal. But something inside my head keeps questioning his capacity to attract big players, spur confidence and earn their respect. At some point a club of Arsenal’s repute must have some big names if it is to compete successfully in Championsleague.
I also think the changes he made in our last game weekend the team and affected the flow of our game.
True, he needs time. But he has to buy the kind of players that bring money and glory back to the club. This seems to me a challenge. Joe
Excellent points and great facts
Well said as well
Thank you Jake, appreciate the kind words
My point exactly if the board don’t put in money into the team we will be a joke to the world:
Thank you jake your words are encouragement to many
I would really like to see the old Arsenal for sure. We have lost our divinity and love from our fans just because we don’t play well and it looks like our top bosses they don’t care of the excelling of the club… please let’s restrutagise ….Africa we love Arsenal
Great analysis..Arsenal lacks spine,and there is a lack of decisiveness in respect to hiring and moving on of players..they are always an hour and a $ short.If that is fixed then all can be well..For instance look at the Zaha debacle,Suarez? Ramsey free transfer,Auba,Koscielny and even Luiz .. history is littered with so much blunderous decision making..could say mo but that’s how I see it
It’s interesting piece very well analysis but really hurting to our darling club in this state,look at our performance against Brighton shambolic playing without any formation, no quality player who was so outstanding, no leadership in the team.Its very pathetic am a Ghanaian currently in Nigeria and if you see Arsenal supporters who can’t even eat because of daily decline of our darling club, but for Stan Kroenke he should be continuing Play games with our heart.
But still gunners.
A thoughtful and thought provoking piece. I agree with the vast majority of it but Arteta needs to be supported financially while he gets rid of the “deadwood” to build a side that he has designed.
If Arsenal are to move forward and be back at the top then they need to be brave, invest in the future and not get sucked into the hire and fire spend big circus.
There are a number of very promising youngsters in the academy who are starting to feature in the match day squad. Medley for one and Danny Ballard should be another who reminds me very much of David “Spider” O’Leary.
Can we as a fan base give Mikel Arteta to support that he needs to move forward?
Arteta needs a solid three years to mature as a manager.(I’m talking about him as a coach, nothing to do with transfers). Makes very curious decisions. Question is, where will we be in three or so years? The rest of the top six? And how possible is it that he just wants ‘puppets’ he can control in the team? Can Ozil’s recent lack of games be down to the fact that he(Ozil) declined to take a paycut despite the gaffer’s intervention? It doesn’t make sense that one of the most used players pre-lockdown is suddenly not used and for ‘tactical reasons’?. Anywho, what do I know?
I mostly agree with your analysis but for a couple things. I do think identifying who is responsible is important. Yes, many people are at fault for the decline over the sharp past 5 years, and the culture at the club needs changing. I think Arteta is working hard on that. But our biggest problems have been at the executive and ownership levels and they must share most of the blame. The Kroenkes did not involve themselves in the club enough until they got 100 percent ownership. First, they have not invested any of their own money to improve the squad. I’m all for long-term self-sustainability to a point, but there are times when you need to invest. Second, they have allowed the malaise and incompetence at the executive level, first allowing things to drift with Gazidis and Wenger, and then Gazidis, and then Raul. Our executive team is not at the level of rivals, and don’t have the football knowledge or a long-term strategy to build the club. They’ve made too many short term decisions and their success rate at buying players has been dreadful. I really think Raul needs to go. Re the squad, I totally agree midfield is our main problem. I’m not sure we need specialists–the game has moved away from that a bit. We need midfielders with upgraded speed and athleticism (we are entirely lacking in speed in midfield) and who are strong in at least 2 out of 3 key areas–defending, passing, scoring the occasional goal. We had specialists with Santi and Coq, but the problem with that pairing is when was injured, we could never find a workable pairing with the other. They were a bit too specialized. At this point, we should sell Auba, even though he’s our best player. I doubt he will stick around for the rebuild, and we can’t afford to get nothing for him. So why draw it out. Had our execs been more hard headed, they would have realized this earlier, found a buyer for Auba that he would be willing to move to, and buy like a Timo Werner type (early mid-20s, proven scorer but still improving, motivated to step up to the PL). No more of this short term chasing CL, when it’s really still a long shot and we’re now an upper midtable team in squad quality. Maybe we should sell Laca too, but I think we do need 1 senior striker and expecting the likes of Martinelli, Eddie, to score a lot of goals is madness. And even we bought another more veteran striker, if he’s from another league, no guarantee he would adjust quickly to the PL. Laca still has 2 years on his contract. I’d carry him one more year and see if he can regain form.
Ooops. I would add a fourth midfield quality… Ability to carry the ball. So 4 key traits. They need to be very good to elite in 2, solid in a 3rd, and okay if they have a bit of a gap in the 4th. Few players have it all. Santi was pretty close, really strong in 3 areas: passing, carrying the ball, scoring from midfield. He worked hard on defense but his small stature and build got in the way.
A lot said is 100% true, I for one agree with all you had to say. It’s been many years of pain, we need some changes
I think we are in a conundrum. We can’t get a good coach because even though we can afford one he requires assurances of huge transfer budget. On the other hand we make do with average coaches who go on breaking records albeit not the right ones. Mourinho played all the youngsters once he knew they weren’t willing to work hard enough at Chelsea. Arteta seems soft or atleast looks that way.
Indeed Mikel should be given enough time to build his own team and take back arsenal to the top.
A very good and insightful piece, I like the attention to detail , I would recommend this to the entire arsenal family. The key areas that need urgent address including cb ,cdm and 8/10,are surely to be addressed before we can see any major improvement on the team! Keep it up!
Arteta needs full support through enough finance to rebuild team again
My problem with arsenal for the last ten years or so is their complacency over signing top players..we get to sign quality players once in a while..to be honest i was actually surprised the days we signed Sanchez and Aubameyang..i doubted until i saw them putting on the jerdey…we are not in Europe but we haven’t made any real statement..Chelsea is a club who are currently playing in the CL and most likely to finish in the top 4 and yet they’ve made 2 massive statements..if we are to gradually come back to where we used to be then we need to get players with maturity and personality..I’ve had a lot about Saliva and watched few clips of him but i doubt if he’s the answer to our dead back line..if we can add Upamecano then Partey and maybe another Right back to knock some sense into Bellerin. Then an attacking midfielder who’s got goals like Madisson..then the Gunners will fire again
Yaa i agree with your signings those are the only players that arsensl needs to get back.they are young.talented and experienced.i think when we sign those players we shall get back were we are supposed to be
I’ve been reading your blog for a while, and I have to say you’re one of the very few writer that spreads positivity amongst the fan base.
Very interesting peice as I couldn’t agree more
I hope to feature in one of your Q&A sections one day tough.
Like!! Great article post.Really thank you! Really Cool.
A very good read! Factual!!
It absolutely true we ned help from who ever can help arsenal to be where they be long.
Have followed afc for 57 years and I have seen it all great times and some not so great,I think with a bit of patience Arteta will come through with the youngsters would be nice to get santi on the scene,but more importantly we must get the fitness and injury problem sorted,we never have a settled team because of this,and this has been evident for years now stand by your team guys we will be back thanks gooner53
Have followed afc for 57 years and I have seen it all great times and some not so great,I think with a bit of patience Arteta will come through with the youngsters would be nice to get santi on the scene,but more importantly we must get the fitness and injury problem sorted,we never have a settled team because of this,and this has been evident for years now stand by your team guys we will be back thanks gooner53
We need to start shopping smart in the transfer market. If Lenos injury is going to be long term then we’ll need an experienced keeper and there are a few we can get on a free transfer (willy Caballero, Joe hart, Ben foster).
We need a good defensive midfielder (we’ve needed one since Gilberto left) if we are not in the champions league we’ll have to pay partey extra. We can sell torreira and replace him with Kalvin Philips of Leeds. There are other cheap options we can add to our midfield like Marco Roca, Emile Buendia, Pierre Emile hojbjerg, Declan Rice (if west ham go down). We can also get Nathan ake, Lemar from Bournemouth. Apart from Nathan ake and rice we won’t have to break the bank
We need to start operating like lille, dortmund, RB Leipzig, sevilla or Leicester. But players before they get to that 40 to 40 million bracket. And make sure we use the loan system to our advantage. We messed up by sending gnarbry to West Brom, we could have also managed bannacer and Co better. We should make sure we don’t repeat the same mistake with the young players we have. Maitland Niles and Nelson might need a loan move.
Paul Mitchell did a good job at Leipzig but he has moved to Monaco, Mike emenalo also did a good job at Chelsea, he brought in the likes of Salah, de bruyne, Lukaku etc so we can bring him to help Edu and Raul in building the arsenal of now and the future.
I think arteta can bring back the glory arsenal had.we need to give him support.we need quality players. (1).Central defender (2).no.8 (3).no.10
Can we just stop pointing at good players like the likes of party, he is a good player who can fit in Arsenal midfield he plays song a defensive midfielder is what we want. We need back our smile pliz, if the owner of the club can’t manage it, let him sale it, if it has become big for him, i think he no longer has interest in it.
Totally agree with this.If we could get a leader on the pitch it would help.Clear the decks and buy CB,CDM and striker.Why has it been so hard to buy a CDM and CB or even develop one…Look deeper and see why we struggle to produce in these positions.Arteta will succeeded, but he needs the right support…not sub standard.
You are right with your observations I only hope the authority will not be defiant to this so many things need to change in the arsenal FC
I largely agree with the well written piece.
Just one area though, I have developed doubts on Arteta. I really know he needs time, as you clearly put it, but it is the small things, few games that we make “informed guesses”. Leaving out sentiments & attachments to him (which I admit I have) because of obvious reasons; Captain, loyal, good at pressers, etc.
A good coach utilises the few good players available. He has to get away a team can work around them. I see he’s lacking here.
I also see his indecisiveness in making substitutes. How do you look for a goal & remove Saka for a defender when Martinelli is in bench? Moreover in 6 minutes to time.
I pray I get proved wrong, but I see several basics he lacks. He’s good assistant to me. I think even when ” good” players come in, he would fail on selection & management. I still don’t understand why Martinelli for instance isn’t given chance.
I’m hoping to be proved wrong. I really want.
Thanks so much for insightful thoughts.
Great piece. Arteta really needs to be backed and our recruitment policy take a new turn.
Yes I love this and we need to act fast cos there’s no time to check time
Excellent piece
Even the clubs like Leicester City, New Castle, Watford, Everton are making better signings than Arsenal. Just look at the quality hiring and sense these clubs have done. When you dont have performing players then top players in the team eventually lose interest and think of moving to other clubs.
Thats what happened with Van Persie, Alexis, Ramsey, Chamberlain.
I wish we had players like Ayoze Perez, Deulofeu, Moise Kean, Partey, Paco Alcacer, Axel Witsel, Tyrone Mings, Alexander Isak, Adnan Januzaj.
Nicolas Pepe is good but not worth money spent on him. Why dont they scout and buy good players from smaller clubs, the way Leicester, Watford, Southampton, Everton, Seville, Villareal have done.
Great piece of insight. You’ve put my mind at ease with your thoughts. I agree with most of it and hope we can seal marque deals like Partey and Upamecano soon.
Give Auba and Saka new contracts. Release all the deadwood as we integrate the youth into the first team. Arteta needs our support as the fans to motivate his players and backing from the top guys to build his ideal team.
Ozil,Mhki,Laca,Luiz,Mustaf,Elneny,Holding,Ceballos should be moved on this season.
Signings. Upa,Partey,Korku,Mari.
Loved the piece. Put together so well but I would keep auba and build around him playing centrally. Let laca, ozil, cabellos, papa, luiz, chambers, mustafi, xhaka, kolasinac go. It should make enough room for new solid players to replace them.
What if??? December 2015, 100 million for Vardy and Marhez… Arsenal win the league, no Leister story.
Good stroll down memory lane. Don’t forget losing Giroux in the Auba deal, but the biggest problem for me was that Emery was the wrong coach for the 29-year-old win-now type players. The team needed an Achelotti type manager to bring together that group.2 years ago, maybe ozil, miki and Ramsay could have done something with the right coach. No idea what happens now. 2 years ago I had hoped for a good finsih, sell the top players and rebuild. Instead, Arsenal let everyone go on a free.
Wonderful analysis. We are all waiting for the Arsenal team that makes us proud as fans. Give Arteta more support
Most fans are crying about the youngsters we let go, yet it is Arsenal fans who used to give Wenger the stick when he played the kids and they make mistakes. It is the fans who asked to spend big. Buying players is a hit and miss. Manu, city, chelsea, Barcelona and Real Madrid have all experienced this. The difference is they can continuously enter the market when a signing does not turn out right, Arsenal can’t. We have to play those players. Fans complain about Ozil’s wage, but allowed to go, these fans will be blaming the club just as we are blaming the club for those other players leaving. So my take is that the fans are part of the problem. We need patience.
Balanced and detailed article. I certainly know it took a while for us to get here, the only place we differ is when the rot started, I probably think it started even before 2015… You are very correct as regards giving Arteta time and support.
Kudos
2017 Ozil, 28-year-old world-class, world cup winning player in his prime. Out of contract. What would he have been worth? (Easily 60 million transfer fee, plus 200 plus per week)That is 90 million over the 3 years. The trouble isn’t the cost of Ozil but how we perceive it. Over the 3 years, Ozil will only cost the team 50 million, that is 40 million less than what he would have cost any other team. We have a bargain in Ozil. It would have been better to pay him the same amount of money but to have given him a 20 million signing bonus, then pay him 200k per week and nobody is complaining.
AFtv is also to be blamed since its main focus is spreading toxicity around the club even hector bellerin highlighted that in one of the podcast…some aftv cast members spread hate,they are the jump on the wagon when a player plays badly and heap insults to a players and this kills the players morale since they also watch aftv…aftv should stop being hype critical and they should go for the main problem which is the board and Stan kroenke not coach or the players to be blame for this mess
Your in-depth analysis is absolutely correct. I have been an Arsenal fan since 1999 and up till now. I only want to add that the money we need to spend to put our team in the best of shape can be sourced from within the squad. All we need to do is to sell most of the dead woods in the team to strengthen the vulnerable areas of the team. We have too many unreliable central defenders we need to let go, we don’t need any enforcement in attacking areas unless someone leaves. I still don’t understand why Gabriel Martnineli will be on the bench without a game time in our two matches so far. I am beginning to think that we are not making significant progress with Arteta in charge, or what explanations can he give us in the way he put out his squads since the restart. Arsenal has three dreadful forwards in Auba, Laca and Pepe; just like the trio of Liverpool. He showed too much of for mancity and that caused us the match. I can go on and on but I just have to put a stop here.
Hey Sash, a great piece from you highlighting the exact areas of our downfall and how we can rise again. I feel we will need to give Arteta at least 2-3 windows to bring in and get rid of players for his system, and us as fans MUST back him, he has great potential to become a top manager but will never be able to do that without our as well as the CLUB’s support.
An example of this was Bukayo Saka’s role as the number 8, he was excellent for a debut in that position (credit to Arteta), if we were to develop him, it would eliminate the need to head out into the market and spend big money, which could now be vitally used for players in other positions.
I am also open to the idea of selling Auba and Laca to raise funds to start building again, same way Liverpool did with Coutinho. We must start by creating a solid spine in the team, something which we have lost majorly. A top quality CB is a MUST and of course a DM (I pray for Partey). With that being said, having a midfield 3 of Xhaka, Partey and Saka will offer 3 diverse style of players that we dearly lack.
This just a small example of solving our many issues that I thought I’d share with you, thank you for all content you provide, it pleases me to see fans such as you who analyse the deep rooted issues rather than pointing fingers over 1-2 players not being in a match day line up.
This is a very breath taking article. You have said it all about the problems facing us as a Football club. Our decline doesn’t happen in a day. Well written and constructed.
Thank you for a comprehensive and objective analysis of our problem in Arsenal. I hope to read more analysis like this as events unfold in future.
Thanks alot writer..These are great words
I won’t complain about any thing now as an arsenal fun.. because from your say, life always gets loop holes but if we realise them and be determined to change,, we can overcome and get stirred up once again
So I think now as arsenal, we need not to criticize anyone but to realise our mistakes and make the best efforts to correct them
Let’s just be patient and put our trust in Arteta, he been at arsenal and he’s won with it.. so he can build it to become a winning team once again.
I believe we will have a trebble once again
I thought we lost our arsenal the day the Hleb and Flamini left. The Philosophy of having mid table players can’t win us a game. Not more than 3 or 4 players today deserve to be in arsenal. Most belong to second division or the B team of Arsenal.
I will say the way forward for Arsenal is to stop playing soccer most of the game at the back.They need to change that tactic in the first half and start playing more attacking soccer, then they will start winning games.
Very good and thoughtful article but I think the rot set in a long time before 2015, the FA cup triumphs of 2014,2015 and 2017 though enjoyable were just papering over the cracks of a long, slow decline since 2010 which has led us to where we are now. Wenger should have left in 2014, but as you so rightly say, the decisions from the executive management have been poor, particularly in terms of contracts and squad building.
I don’t think you are right about Sven either. He brought in Aubameyang, Leno, Guendouzi and Torrera, all good players. Who has Raul brought in? Suarez, Cebellos, Luis, etc. There is no point getting in Spanish players who are too lightweight to make it in La Liga
In my mind, there is a shocking lack of direction and strategy at the club, we are going nowhere fast.
Until Ozil goes arsenal will never get out of this mess the club is in at the moment he is a stagnant force in the club, the money he is being payed means that they can’t attract the best players because of the ridiculous salary that is payed to ozil.if this financial fiasco happened in the business world outside of football there would be a police enquiry into the people that gave this contract to ozil.
Get Partey, go for one of Grealish/Muddison/Buendia or Coutinho on loan.
If choose Coutinho on loan, buy Zaha let him play left wing as Saka or Willock grow to play 10.
I am pretty sure with such an attack with Partey in the midfield… Our defence will be good
Arsenal has got players that can bring good results only some areas needed to police.A solid Defence commander is needed.midfield arsenal need to surely identify a permanent holding midfielder who must at a give time play only when is injured. Arsenal don’t have the like of Pires,look at the game against Brighton,Arsenal had more rebounds and no one was there to score those rebounds..Arsenal luck what is called second ball..ie if the opponent loses a ball can one be there to take the ball, Asrenal players have no character, they let an opponent control the ball with confidence..Arsenal players have poor workrate in the pitch.. When it comes to throw in they allow the opponent comfortable control the ball.they have the tendencies of switching themselves off.
I cannot understand why we are surprised at Arsenal declined. It’s obvious Krenokee is not going to spend and we had Osmovw and Dein there for a while trying to rescue the club but those old fart directors won’t let them, now they’re bank rolling Everton instead. So l only feel sorry for the fans because we didn’t deserve what we are getting. But for the owners they got value for thier money and that’s reflected on poor performance on the field because majority of players at Arsenal today and last 10 years were weak mentally and physically. They lack ambition to win Trophy and they’re what they are because of Arsenal reputation. If l were Arteta from next season l will clear out all the senior players except Auba if he chose to stay. I will start with academy players like Balogun, Medley, Saka etc and the like of Martinrli, Nelson, Niles will come good, and Willock too Saliba, l will try Ghendouzi at the back to stop him going backwards when received the ball!, let xhaka, Mustasfi, Cebalous, Luiz already a gonner, Ozil the parasite if he’s seing off his contract should be play in every game not the the one he wants and if he doesn’t deduct his wages,Papa, Soctrais etc
should be off loaded, there are too many tired players and too many deadwood they need to go!!. If we can find a very good holding and
another attacking midfielders do it Enough is enough this current players are taking a piss and they’re fvery lazy and very weak.
Well said guys. This is indeed an interesting time for our Arsenal team. We now have a great window to get in the players in the needed areas that will help Arteta build his own team. Financial fair play rule has been suspended for the next two years, so we should break the bank if need be without paying the price. It will also be good if we do not qualify for Europe next season to enable us play a full domestic season without an added distraction on the team and figure out a proper state of the team going forward.
.
Spot on mate, we all kind of saw this coming but I don’t think we thought it would be this bad. Who would have thought a club like Arsenal would be short of midfield creativity? I also wouldn’t mind seeing Laca and Auba leave alongside our 350k squad player. Let’s sign players who are talented and down for the cause.
A new broom sweeps clean.
Great piece. A lot of truth here. I would back us selling players like Lacazette, Mustafi, Socratis, Kolasinac, Guendouzi to bring in proper players.
I stop short of backing an Auba sale. Where on earth are we going to find another goalscorer like him, especially given what signing a player of his calibre will cost.