Good morning all.
This evening we play Burnley at the home of football, and I can’t stress how massive a game it’s become for Mikel Arteta and the fanbase.
Burnley have had a terrible start to the season. They have won one game and only scored 5 goals, while conceding 18. But despite their form and awful record in this fixture, the game fills me with fear and trepidation.
Burnley literally don’t have a player of any note. They have two old-fashioned big lump strikers and two old-fashioned big lump centre-backs. The play an old-fashioned 442 and they just try to bludgeon their way to wins. They should be meat and drink to a team like Arsenal, but I suspect Sean Dyche is licking his lips at the prospect of his trip to London.
We sit in 15th place and a loss or a draw will likely see us stay in 15th place, a win will propel us up the table to the dizzy heights of 14th, so hardly a sea-change, but the damage to confidence – of the team and fans – to Mikel Arteta could be huge.
I get the feeling that both the dressing-room and the fan-base are tottering on the brink with their belief in the Spaniard and even his perfect hair won’t be enough to turn the tide.
When it comes to the point where the board have to come out in support of the manager and there is open rebellion of 3 or 4 players, the end is usually nigh.
Ozil, Guendouzi, Saliba, Pepe and team captain Aubameyang have, sometimes directly and sometimes through their agents, broken ranks and voiced their displeasure with Arteta. Even Willian, his pet Brazilian, is looking to distance himself from Arteta and the club that was desperate to pay £200k pw to get his signature, a few short months ago. The faith of the fans is shifting towards the young squad members, but as Arteta seems to have no inclination to put similar faith in them, even they can’t help him. I suspect there are more players, just like our big twitter accounts, bloggers and podcasters, that are waiting for the moment that they can shift their public position towards Arteta, safe in the cocoon of public opinion.
I have no idea how we will set up, who will play and where they will play. Nothing seems to work and no combination of players have looked good. We have not been unlucky, because all the measures of how well we are playing, has us in the bottom 5.
We can argue how good a squad we have in comparison to others, which could reasonably be said to be between 4th and 8th, but no way is it 15th. So something is seriously wrong and something has to seriously change. It might be an exaggeration to say that Arteta is in the last chance saloon, but it must be getting close to that. Make no mistake, our owners will be watching closely and will do whatever necessary to protect their investment, the future value of commercial deals and the share value.
Good luck to everyone involved, because we need it.
Pedantic George.
Positively Arsenal 
For God’s sake, Arteta, swallow your pride, get down off your high horse, drop Willian and Xhaka and let the team play free-flowing football, she says from dreamworld.
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Dwight McNeil is a fine player in the Burnely ranks, a dangerous wideman.
I think we know most of the starting 11 if not all of them, all those Arteta did not bring to Ireland will very likely start, add in the likes of Holding and Ceballos who went and did not play or came on as a sub also the most likely to fill out the team.
so our starting 11 is very likely to be
Leno
Bellerin, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney
Xhaka, Ceballos
Willian, Lacazette, Saka
Aubameyang
subs: Runarsson, Cedric, Mustafi(or David Luiz if his cut head is ok), Elneny, Maitland-Niles, Willock, Nketiah
others in with a shout of being subs are Mari, Nelson if fit, Smith-rowe and even Martinelli now that he is back in training.
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Yeah Eddy, I would expect that line up, but how often can he keep putting it out with no sign of improvement?
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I would say Arteta is safe for now, but it will not take many more defeats or even draws to put in him real danger. For me he would be in a lot more trouble already if fans were allowed in, as not only would we be seeing fans booing the team off at half time and full time, we would be seeing lots of empty seats. It would take just a little bit of ire directed at KSE and they would act. They done it for far less with Emery and make no mistake they will act on Arteta if things do not improve.
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thing is george that team is capable of far better football if they were given the freedom to play it. Arteta is being cowardly in his approach to games, that is what needs to change.
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Arteta has hinted that Ozil might be registered in January, of course this merest of hints of bringing Ozil back in from the cold, has been met by bloggers and big twitter accounts with outrage, its amazing that they have gone on and on about our lack of creativity and our need to get some in the team, and yet they do not want Ozil back, no its a shiny new player they want, any shiny new player will do, one from a lower european league, one from the championship, anyone as long as its not ozil.
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No way to feel confidence at moment but hope is we go for it from off and it works. Think Europa has little bearing on prem but the fans being in other week did seem to lift team so hopefully will again today, we also went for it from off against Spurs in way we haven’t in big games previously so perhaps that signals a change.Thankfully Burnley don’t have a counter comparable to Spurs’.
I’ll go for outlandish optimism and a win today with Willian on scoresheet!
As for that Saliba exchange…oh oh. I didn’t buy his exclusion being an act of looking after a struggling player hit by tragedy, especially not when there were already two examples of how players are bombed out if they clash with Arteta or he doesn’t fancy them. Seems especially mad when there’s been talk of club’s regret at letting Malen and Bennacer go cheap.
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Arteta says Arsenal’s January transfer plans are at an advanced stage. Says they know what they have to do, who has to move, who has to be loaned, what loan players need to come back and what incomings are needed. Of course that was all qualified with depending on the market.
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Seems to be one of those crunch weekends – for Arsenal and for Brexit, hell even the Americans are finally starting to vaccinate.
Burnley’s lowly position would present a huge opportunity for MA to wield the knife and play his best players regardless of their age or position in the squad. Far better to go down fighting than to persist in an old guard, at least some of whom appear to have almost downed tools (anything to do with the shabby treatment of Ozil by chance?).
For most clubs, the return of fans to stadiums, regardless of numbers, is a welcome development. For Mikel, it could the factor that finishes him off.
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Fully agree with Eduardo592 (10:38 am); have felt this way for the last month or so but puzzled that our perfect European record doesn’t seem to have been negatively affected by negative Arteta. Has he allowed to EL teams be play with gay abandon or have they just not been able to play according to his restrictive dictat?
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I can’t see them letting Arteta go unless he becomes involved in a genuine relegation scrap, which is possible. I would also worry who they would replace him with, purely guessing , PV or TH would perhaps be front runners, but wouldn’t be convinced by either at this stage.If Arteta goes, presumably Edu might go with him, and that leaves, erm, Per on the senior team that knows anything about football.
What a stupid mistake that was, seemingly alienating the one man who actually understands the game, and could take this club forward. This club doesn’t just need a manager, it needs a structure with someone highly experienced in the game overseeing things, and hopefully, preventing this lurching from one crisis to another, neither Edu nor Josh Kroenke fit that bill it would seem.
I see a boring draw today, but hoping to be pleasantly surprised
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Arteta’s non-negotiables with Ozil, Guendouzi, Sokratis, Saliba, even Pepe would be all fine and dandy, even admirable in many ways, if it was not for how Willian could just fuck off to Saudi and there was no problem for him. I have always found that non-negotiables only work if applied to all, people soon rebel when they see its a pick and mix.
The biggest mistake Arteta has made in his time at Arsenal was leaving Ozil out, and taking full credit for it. You can’t leave out a creative player of his ability and then score less than a goal a game and create so little chances. when you make as big a call as that you better make sure it works. Players are not mugs, they see ozil in training and see him able to do things that the team needs. when Arteta left Ozil out, he probably should have kept him out of training too, at least then it might have been out of sight out of mind for the rest of the squad.
When he implied that there was no room for Ozil cos we don’t play with a no.10 the last thing he should have done was then play with a no.10, some like Lacazette who is not a no.10 and the others not near Mesut’s level.
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Andrew for me the reason why there has been far more freedom in our play in the EL is two fold, maybe threefold,
in our first game we started the game as negative as anything in the league, it was only once we were behind that we had to come out to play, and then we found that the opponents were several levels below our standard so we could take risks.
Remember too that we only kept 2 clean sheets in the 6 EL games, and this despite the amount we were above all 3 teams.
the younger players are excited to get a chance, this enthusiasm gives more life to their play
We knew by round 2 that we were almost certain to win all 6 games, this takes the pressure off, also it meant Arteta did not have the fear in him that he seems to have towards all EPL teams.
The fact that could give debuts to players in the EL, and that star men in those games, mostly didn’t even make the bench or come on in the following league game tells us that Arteta sees the difference in levels of the two competitions.
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Burnley is pivotal. Lose and Arteta’s position is untenable. As I explained in my recent blog, it doesn’t matter what fans, bloggers and podcasters think. The Kroenke’s £800 million investment is at risk if Arsenal get dragged into a relegation scrap; 15th place is not far from 18th. I noted on Twitter yesterday that during the week we had the dreaded vote of confidence by Vinai in an interview with the Times. Coincidence?
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The EL teams have been playing against opponents that would struggle in the conference, is that the difference midweek that we can see?
The PL coaches have all got Arteta’s number now on his post lock down style and tactics.
If Mikel starts Bellerin and Holding together with the same instructions you have to wonder if Dyche will target the same area that every opponent in the league since Villa has done at great cost to the club’s position in the table.
As for the shower of shitting bloggers, these click baiting shite trawlers sunk their navy frigates and lost all credibility when they attempted to tell the fan base that Ramsey and Ozil couldn’t play together after we’d all seen them win three cups in four years. Perhaps some like the stench of fungal manure but it’s not for me or many more. They are dismissed.
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Interesting comments.
Possibly worth mentioning that Arsenal are not the only team currently underperforming. Given the astonishing sums invested in both Manure and Citeh, the dire dross served up yesterday by way of an admittedly less than hotly anticipated Manchester derby, was all but unwatchable as neither side were exactly ‘mad’ for it. Still, only a small comfort at best.
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Fatigue is a factor for sure AA.
Bellerin Holding and Saka all in need of a rest, they’ve been flagging.
This makes the call on Saliba with Chambers and Holding in he return from serious injuries (see Gomez at Liverpool) almost as bad a call as the Ozil call. Fuck my football boots what a fuck up! £100M of signings not starting, best most important player not in the squad, this is a disaster for a club with finite resources and the inability of these blaggers to point out the bleeding obvious has passed the point of parody.
Oh dear when I wrote here just in October that Arteta has nailed his season to the mast of the idiotic Ozil call I did not expect to see him capsize the boat so quickly.
Without a sail and with only hard working oarsmen left in the galley drilled to the beat of the drum you will be left blowing in the wind and at the mercy of the currents beyond your control.
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Although this might seem like a pivotal weekend for both ARSENAL and Brexit in reality I can’t see anything happening with either.
Much more likely Jan 1st is a more realistic deadline although again not a concrete deadline with either.
As I said in the last post I can’t see us not winning today, Burnley as boring and game strangling as they are have not the ability to hold out against even our low on confidence side.
At the moment I see us struggling against the sides from 1st to about 11th in the table but the rest are fair game and Burnley are rubbish.
Mikel said the youngsters are putting real pressure on the older more established members of the squad and I like to see that reflected in the bench today but Im not totally convinced that’s what Mikel will do.
Anyway I m going to try to look forward to the game today and a win with a few goals COYG.
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Shorts, I think your forgetting Mikel’s position only becomes untenable when they have a replacement lined up. All the staff their are his own or part of the regime there are no Don Howe, Stewart Houston, Pat Rice or Freddie’s around to be caretaker. The nearest is Steve Bould and I don’t think they let him have a few games. I also don’t think Edu would want it for a few weeks either so I think we would see a period of Dead Man Walking while they got a new man in. I don’t think we are anywhere near that place yet.
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Sory that should of been Shotta dam auto correct
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Thought experiment: Would we have been better off if they had made Freddie permanent head man with a full staff of his choosing?
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spurs got a draw away to palace and now liverpool are behind at half time away to fulham
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Interesting thought 900ftgooner, wonder if that was ever considered?
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Team:Leno, Bellerin, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney, Willian, Xhaka, Elneny, Saka, Lacazette, Aubameyang.
Subs: Runarsson, Mustafi, Maitland-Niles, Ceballos, Willock, Nketiah, Smith Rowe
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Burnley team: Pope, Lowton, Tarkowski, Mee, Taylor, Jay Rodriguez, Westwood, Brownhill, Brady, Wood, Rodriguez.
Subs: Peacock-Farrell, Barnes, Pieters, Vydra, Long, Dunne, Benson.
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Mandy seeing as Freddie said the club refused to allow him to bring in anyone to help him even on a short term basis would suggest that no matter what results were under him he was not being considered at all for the job
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liverpool got a draw with fulham, with a salah penalty
AFC now just the 12 pts off top spot, and 9pts off 4th place, a win would see us shoot up the table from 15th place to 14th place but a defeat would see us just 5pts off a relegation place
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I guess Nelson has not been fully fit since he came off in the previous to last EL match, a blow for these games with Pepe out but ESR makes the bench today.
Will it be three at the back at home against Burnley? Guessing and hoping that Mo will provide better cover for the right hand side as he did earlier in the season.
Looking at the attack I can understand the selection of Lacazette in this game but it’ll be more of the same against their counter attacking low block. I expect Burnley will target Saka unless Willian has an unexpected blinder.
COYG.
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fins, Nelson had a clash of heads in training, said to have been with Kolasinac, it was why both missed the EL game on Thursday
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The good ship Arsenal used to be guided by more then just one sail. Happy birthday to the Saint possibly my favourite Arsenal player. I hope it’s a lucky day for the Gunners.
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Odd results all over the place suggesting that despite the woes at Arsenal it maybe not just the manager who is the problem.
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Thanks Ed
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Auba unimpressed with Willian’s pressing. Burnley have come out to play so Willian will need to up his game.
He follows up with a good cross but again no near post run.
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burnley miss a great chance
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lacazette goes close, pope makes a good save
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Lacazette’s passing technique is too inconsistent for him to prosper in this deeper role?
Arsenal pushing Burnley back at the moment and a decent chance for Holding in the follow up from a corner.
Another fleeting chance for Saka but the decent pass from Auba is just a touch too strong.
Burnley break down the right but a poor pass breaks down their attack. Elneny playing more on the left.
It’s a three behind Auba, with Xhaka dropping back into the defence or striding forward just now to make the Gunner’s best attack, for Lacazette who surely can’t be starting ahead of others much longer in this form?
Another good cross from Willian and a header from Gabriel. A flurry of chances in this spell for the Gunners.
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HT: Arsenal 0-0 Burnely
mostly on top without ever really opening them up
LCFC are 3-0 up on Brighton at half time, so at least one relegation rival is losing today
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Changing conditions from a slippery deck at the start they’re now playing on a soggy top. Bellerin caught out once by a slowing ball as he tried to break away.
Elneny sharing duties with Xhaka when backing up the defence in this formation which is more ambitious then feared and he’s well on first viewing well for me. Lacazette not so much! Willian apart from a few crosses has been poor with his passing.
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I’d be inclined to bring on EMR for Lacca at half time, at least he has some idea how to play the no.10 role
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PEA butchered two great attacking moves with woeful lay offs, simple six to ten yard passes and he put both behind the runner, its just not good enough.
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Arsenal repeating the same failed move repeatedly and relentlessly; reminds me of a moth trying to get into a lighted room.
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Great chance for Tierney following good work from Auba as Arsenal break from a long pass by Leno. Tierney opts for the right footed finish with options available, doesn’t really test Pope.
Auba then rewarded with his first chance a header, and he then creates another move significantly a move towards the centre near the D and out with Saka almost beating Pope from Willian’s pass.
Better spell after HT for the Gunners. Burnley finally creaking.
Can the Gunners hold it tight on the break and find the finish? Another close chance for Saka and now some fisticuffs for a yellow by Xhaka to end a break by Burnley. The pgmob will send him off.
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Wtf is wrong with our players, haven’t they seen what the PGMOL do given the chance?
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the fucking dickhead Xhaka got himself needlessly sent off, grab an burnley player by the throat, the fucking numpthy
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finally when we were on top, Xhaka goes and does that, what is wrong with our players
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that will be a 3 game ban for him
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He fucks up again. Xhaka, complete shite
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Pathetic ,bet we top the reds again , just over petulance not as if we even lamp the opponents!
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we’ve brought on Ceballos for Lacazette
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20 minutes to somehow pull out a win in this
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