Hello again,
In this podcast we debate how many excuses can be used and reused before someone will suggest Arteta might have ballsed in up. We also wonder if Xhaka is right about players being afraid to play a bad ball and if Arteta’s constant directions from the technical area make the players more risk adverse. Does the fear of conceding a goal mean we wont take any risks to try and score one?
Pedantic George
Positively Arsenal 
I said NO to Arteta from before day one! Since he has proved dogmatic and limited. Like his midfield play his management tactics and style only display flashes of creativity and menace, An ironed flat team with flashes of individuality.
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I to was against promoting coach Mikel to Manager. After the Leeds wilderness years when they kept appointing ex players and it turned into a disaster. Since then I always thought it was a bad idea.
With Edu behind him they had a terrible start especially with the policy of buying old pros. That was definitely deliberate and definitely failed.
After that the youth policy was Hobson’s choice which is a worry when you consider the best things in the last few seasons has been forced.
I not manically Mikel out but the moment the club does look like it is drifting.
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Sadly, i feel the tiny totts will stick a hatfull in v Brighton followed by a capitulation against Soton and a twitter storm to follow. I hope I’m wrong
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Although we have had some nightmares at Southampton, I tend to remember them being evening games for some reason (probably wrong).
Sunny days by the coast are normally very enjoyable so I’m expecting a good win today. The difficult run will come afterwards COYG.
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From my perception regarding the GG years being fallow, perhaps only in a relative sense? Before Graham it was pretty quiet between 80-86 (86 was when things seem to start again). But we were competing in the GG years,even if it wasn’t super glamorous football. In the 90-91 league campaign, so we could be pretty tight arsed. Even if that side would have gone unbeaten, Im not sure it would have had the same standing in peoples minds as the Invincibles, but we will never know.
One thing I liked was that Wenger seemed the rightful successor to GG ( I know Im not doing Bruce any justice really), and built on what he tried to do,but we utterly failed in getting a successor to Weng.In fact it seemed more about deconstructing everything out of spite and jealousy? Im stating the obvious in this,but now we might have to swim around for years in a pool of maybe rather than definitely, the way it all seems to be unfolding?
I love what George had to say around 43 mins, although its horrible to see and its is a joke, except its not funny. But good to see it being called out.
Thanks to you three guys for the pod. Today? Who knows?
COYG!
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Like Mills and Ian I have a funny feeling we might win today. The two defeats would have been a wake-up calll and Arteta is good at this type of rear-guard action.
PS: Are you guys seeing my posts on Twitter? Seems to me something funny is going on with my account. As a prudent alternative to all the restrictions and censorship, from now on I am posting everything on the Uncensored Arsenal Telegram channel. Subscribe/Join: https://t.me/uncensoredarsenal
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Arsenal: Ramsdale, White, Gabriel, Saka, Odegaard, Cedric, Tavares, Sambi Lokonga, Nketiah, Xhaka, Martinelli.
Subs: Leno, Smith Rowe, Holding, Pepe, Elneny, Azeez, Ogungbo, Swanson, Hutchinson
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Southampton: Forster, Valery, Bednarek, Lyanco, Walker-Peters, Romeu, Ward-Prowse, Perraud, S.Armstrong, Elyounoussi, Broja.
Subs: Caballero, Stephens, Livramento, Salisu, Redmond, Tella, A.Armstrong, Adams, Long.
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Arsenal
@Arsenal
·
56m
🚨 Alex Lacazette misses out on today’s matchday squad after testing positive for Covid.
Wishing you all the best, @LacazetteAlex
✊
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saka really should have scored there
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44 minutes southampton take the lead
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it was poor defending
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HT: 1-0
we were the better side but created very very little, had one great chance that saka should have scored from, but we find ourselves behind at the break, and we very seldom come from behind to win
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Missed the 1st h, thanks for the mini report Ed. Any hope for the 2nd?
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Nice to see the Seaweed beat the Chickens! No excuses Arteta…the kindly ones are trying to help you.
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Smith-Rowe on for Cedric
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25 minutes left and there is little sign that we can score here, all too slow, too individual, and over complicated. Lots of aimless possession
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pepe on for tavares
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esr mishits a good chance and the keeper saves it
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as things stand man utd go above us
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4 minutes of stoppage time, but I don’t think we’d scored even if we had another 40 minutes, we haven’t a clue what to do when behind.
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FT: Southampton 1-0 Arsenal
Arteta hasn’t a fucking clue how to set the team up to score goals,
11 defeats in the league so far, top 4 was there for the taking and our total reliance on scoring first if we are to get anything out of games has bit us on the arse big time.
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Poor. Limp. Bereft of ideas. No lust. No will.Average Arsenal, mid table stylings? Does anyone actually want to win at this club? Wouldnt Elneny be a better choice than Lokongka? Three losses on the trot. Teams you would have thought on paper we might have beaten. Paper late!
Dang!
But on we still go.
COYaverageG!
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If we were to make CL then presumably several of these players would have their positions threatened, so the cynic might wonder how much some of them really want to win.
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Citys keeper makes the gaff of the century! Poor bloke, I fee pretty sorry for him, that one wont ever go away. Not sure that Pep had the confidence to go for the treb. Klopp on for the Quad. Arteta on his bike?
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Reading other Arsenal blogs it amazes me that so many are saying we miss Partey – ignoring the fact he was truly awful in his last game.
I agree with Mills above that Elneny should have played.
Amazing thing is top 4 is still in our own hands.
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see someone say today that this season Arsenal have started 5 different CF’s in the EPL and combined they have scored 6 EPL goals, and that it begs the question is it the players fault for lack of goals or the system of football we play under Arteta.
my view is that our lack of goals is on Arteta, we swing in high crosses all season long as if we had a Giroud or Alan Smith in there, not a bunch of forwards who barely have a headed goal between them in their careers.
Today we left ESR out, so Odegaard was the only attacking midfielder in the team, and he spent most of his time hanging out wide right to stay out of the way of having to create anything, or run the risk of being challenged. Saka on the left and Martinelli on the right was up there with Xhaka being left back last week, Arteta is far too clever by half.
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7 games to go, Chelsea, Man Utd, West Ham, Leeds, Spurs, Newcastle, Everton, and
to match last season’s points total of 61pts, we need 7pts,
to match last season’s poor goal return of 55, we need 10 goals,
to match last season’s fixed defense goals conceded total of 39 our new super fixed, double glazed defense can only let in 2 more goals.
we currently sit 6th, the one stat from last season that we might find the easiest to match is final position of 8th
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if you need a good laugh or maybe a good cry have a read of Arteta’s post game press conference
Mikel Arteta gave an honest assessment of our performance after we slumped to a disappointing defeat against Southampton on Saturday.
The result leaves us with a lot to do, with just seven games remaining in our fight for a top-four spot.
After the match, the boss discussed our performance, improving our goal threat and how we bounce back.
Read on for a full transcript:
on what he made of today’s result…
Difficult to explain because this is football and it is not basketball. With any other sport you win the games very comfortably and you are talking about different things. Difficult to explain considering [the performance], to lose that football match. At the end of the day it is decided in the boxes, they scored one goal, and for the amount of time that we spent around the box, and the shots that we had and the situations and the clear-cut chances that we had – we didn’t put them in the goal. Because they had an exceptional goalkeeper today, and as well we didn’t have enough quality and enough capacity to break them down when we had the numbers and the situations to do so.
on how big of a missed opportunity it feels like, given the Spurs result earlier…
Huge. Because for somebody that doesn’t know the result and is watching the game, you know what they will tell you…that Arsenal won the game – and we didn’t. It’s very disappointing, and difficult to explain with words. But this is sport, it’s what makes it different to any other – because again in basketball you have 25 shots and the winner has one and you win 10 out of 10 times.
on whether not taking our chances is what is separating us from the very top sides…
It is what we have. The players that we have, they haven’t done it in this league. When you have a world class player that has been playing in the league for 10 years, probably you are not sitting here. But I am the first one to defend them, to support them. You see how [hard] they tried, and the only way to do it is to insist and what happened today might happen the next week or the next month.
on how he’s planning to improve our goal threat in the upcoming games…
Well something clicks and instead of the ball hitting the post – like it did twice last week and hit the goalkeeper and gets deflected and goes outside – [instead] it goes in. This is very difficult to predict, because to create more – I can’t remember a game where Arsenal has played with this team, where they have created and dominated in a game more and better. But the result is what at the end we need to be where we have to be, and if we are not able to do that we aren’t not going to be there – it’s as simple as that. Because you don’t have enough quality to be there, because we have to win football matches and we have to score more goals, and that’s a problem we have at the moment.
on how difficult it will be to pick the squad up after this defeat…
They are really down today, and they are down because they cannot find the right answer apart from what we can do better around the box, and not to win the match. That’s the frustration – when somebody is better than you you shake their hands and you have to do something, you have to believe yourself you have to be critical of yourself. But when it’s happening the way it happened – apart from 25 minutes against Palace, and some period against Brighton in the first half – it’s very difficult to explain, and accept.
on whether Lacazette might return to action this week…
It will depend whether he’s negative and whether he is feeling better and if his symptoms have gone and if he’s available to play.
Copyright 2022 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to http://www.arsenal.com as the source.
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just back to another old gripe of mine this season, another game we are losing, need a goal, have brought on two subs, still have the exciting prospect Hutchinson on the bench, but don’t throw him on, for me Sambi made no impact today, could we have thrown on Azeez for the final ten or so to change the CM make up. Why so many defenders on the bench, when our U23 leading scoring Biereth who actually will challenge for those high crosses we oh so like to aimlessly fire in time and again (maybe Arteta thinks its Basketball players we have in there – see his post game comments. it would explain a lot)
So many bloggers, twitteratti, and even journos like to tell us Arteta is a coach to loves to give youth a chance, but playing the same handful of young players over and over is not the same as taking a punt or a risk on throwing in a young lad for his debut when our backs are against the wall and we need a goal. I have asked it before and I ask it again, whats the worst that could happen if Arteta threw one of them on when we need a goal, they don’t score and we lose, its fucking happening anyway, so why not at least try something. On that topic, why not, if afraid to risk a callow youth, throw on Holding as an emergency CF, or put him CB and send up Gabriel who has a couple of headed goals to his name. Try fucking something. Stop being so fucking risk averse that it just looks like we are accepting defeat.
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Orbinho
@Orbinho
· 5h
This is the first time since 1983-84 that Arsenal have lost three league games in a row twice in the same season.
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Thomas Partey looks to be out for the rest of the season so is very likely to have missed a total of 28 EPL games through injury and suspension from the possible 72 EPL he could have played in since he joined us four games into last season
Granit Xhaka has so far through injury and suspension missed 41 EPL games from the 201 EPL games we have played since he joined us. This season the first one where he has missed a large chunk of games, with a knee injury. He has only played in 19 of our 31 EPL games this season.
I think its clear that Partey needs replacing much more than Xhaka, as he is far more likely to miss games through injury or suspension than Granit is, despite the liability tag.
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No one could seriously make a case for Mikel liking youth brought though from within he has consistently tried to keep them out.
The way we played the last ten minutes gave Eddie no chance of getting anything, I felt sorry for him today.
Oddegarrd was poor today maybe he couldn’t cope with the false captain’s armband it must be difficult when you know the real captain is just behind you.
Ben White also had a mare today and nothing went right for him but I bet all the pods and post will mention nothing about one of their favourites struggling.
Partey is getting better with every game he is out, if he is missing for much longer he will be world class again very soon.
Anyway chelski beat the saints six nil and the saints just beat us which means in football mathematics we will beat chelski that’s just the way it is.
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The shameless blaggers who unflatteringly exposed themselves over the last decade call for the world class Partey because: they do not know Football. By their own words. Coquelin had banners from the fans and he was not world class, fans love defensive midfielders & apparently by our own eyes Coquelin was or is (if you are following the CL) a better footballer then Partey.
Maybe one day Arteta will be as good a coach as Potter or Viera or others. But that day is far off. In the meantime Edu and pals can continue to rinse the register signing “world class” talent haha ching ching!
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New post is up.
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