Short post this morning, I have to walk the dog and go get some hamberders, so that I can leave them out on my half-a-million dollar silverware for a few hours before I eat them for lunch. I want them nice and cold so that when I light the candles, for class, I get that great contrast between the cold, congealed fast food, and the golden warm glow of the White House candelabras.
I wrote a very short piece over on the Arsenal Review making the case for how Özil is still THE creative force on this Arsenal team. He leads or nearly leads in a ton of important categories like passes in the final third, passes in the opposition half, pre-assists, and even key passes. That’s despite the fact that the coach dropped him, played him wide right, told him not to wander from the right, and took away his free kick duties. Sorry, Unai, you need Özil, buddy.
What’s incredible about all of this is that I’m not Özil’s greatest supporter. I know what he brings to the team offensively but I have often complained about his lack of work defensively and really hoped that Emery would be able to make him into a modern forward player like Klopp has done with Mane and Firmino. But it’s patently clear that Arsenal need Ozil. And Emery is going to have to stretch himself a bit and figure out how to play him. At least until he can get a suitable replacement.
The other thing I need to say is so long to Petr Cech. He was a great purchase by Arsene Wenger, one which showed that the club wanted to win things right away, and Arsenal really should have won the League with him in 2015/16 but for the fact that Cazorla went down injured (which Cazorla blames Arsenal for) and the fact that the finishing dried up.
What killed Arsenal were the big chance misses by Ramsey (2/10 finishing), Walcott (4/15) and Özil (4/12). You could have any one or maybe even two of your “forwards” miss that many chances but when you have three players go 8/37 (22% on shots that are normally scored around 50%) you are going to drop points. Just to put this in another way, Arsenal created 97 chances that season, those three players alone missed 29 of them. The ten more goals that you would expect from those shots would have gone a long way to winning the League.
And Cech was magnificent that season. He saved 48% of the big chances he face (2nd behind de Gea) and a League leading 64% of the shots in prime that he faced. He was the best keeper in the League that year by my calculus, who was actually undone by goals scored from outside the 18 yard box where he allowed 11. Still, you couldn’t really fault him: expected goals outside were 7, inside were 19 (he allowed just 8) and in prime 18 (he allowed 14). So, despite the poor form from distance, overall he saved 11 goals more than expected.
It’s a shame we didn’t win that year but we will always have the memory of his excellent goal-keeping. He’s also a tremendous gentleman off the pitch, donating time and money to local and club charities. Thanks for everything, Mr. Cech.
Cech has been a true gentleman during his time with us and deserves all the praise he gets. Also surprised by the fact he is retiring. Thought a good 1/2 years left in him considering his performances that kept Leno out early in the season. Interested in how Arsenal will go about replacing him. A younger goalkeeper from academy or a senior appointment from outside? Please don’t let it be Martinez. He is neither of those.
I’m not the biggest Ozil fan either. I don’t like seeing someone with the natural talent to be one of the all-time greats settle for being very good. That being said, he is still exactly that–very, very good. The difference in class in the offensive third when he is on the pitch is obvious. Without Ozil pulling the strings, and with Aubameyang and Lacazette surely unable to keep converting chances as they did early in the season (which we’re starting to see now), I think a pretty distant sixth is the best we can hope for. I just hope the slide stops there.
Don’t forget to get some fast food joint covfefe to go with your hamberders, Tim.
It’s the best.
When I treat people to some hamberders I always brag about how it was I who paid for them, and then for an extra touch of class I inflate the amount of hamberders threefold or more.
I bought 300.. no ONE THOUSAND hamberders.
“I want you all to know I have been supporting a Filipino boy for many years. Paid for by me.”
Sven Mislintat jumping ship. Nice.
Is there a more poorly run club with top four ambitions?
For real?
For realz… https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/jan/15/arsenal-head-recruitment-sven-mislintat-future
Amy Lawrence, Guardian, it’s real.
I agree with Mislintat: what’s the point of being head of recruitment for a club that is publicly announcing that they won’t be doing any recruitment? If I was Mislintat I’d be looking for a real job too.
This, and the cost-cutting measures memo that just went out (“please consider re-using paper cups, bringing your own stationery, and folding toilet paper in order to get two wipes from one square”) convince me that Kroenke is a keen admirer of Newcastle.
The one small mercy in this mess is that we no longer have Gazidis around to tell us that, in fact, the club is very ambitious.
Ivan “dry powder” Gazidis.
Just as soon as the stadium money and FFP kick in we will unleash the true financial juggernaut that is Arsenal FC.
Wenger was a fucking miracle worker.
Exactly, Tim! And Gazidis let him get hounded out.
I don’t think he was a miracle worker. I think he made poor decisions in the last few years that has led us to look very much like a 6th-placed club.
Wenger left some messes for sure: Xhaka, Mustafi, Kolasinac, and a barely limping Bellerin. The disastrous season where we only signed Cech. A legacy of poor defending and shattered confidence in the defense. Wenger was flawed. Wenger made mistakes.
But Wenger wasn’t the owner. He wasn’t the general manager. And looking above Wenger at a club which is obsessed with breaking even, an ownership structure which is never going to put a dime into the club, and let’s be frank about Gazidis who has zero applicable football knowledge, also shows the work that Wenger had to do for a decade to keep this club afloat. It is possible for him to be both deeply flawed and to have worked miracles. This is the fundamental flaw in the WOB/AKB argument that I have been railing against for the last 11 years here.
I also don’t know if we can blame all of what’s going on now on him. The club and the folks above him kept the dying show alive for far too long. They are the ones who signed off on the Ozil deal, who yanked Ramsey’s deal, they brought in StatDNA (Wenger was against it), they picked Mustafi and Xhaka,
and ultimately they are the ones who couldn’t get Ramsey and Ozil to put pen to paper back in 2015/16.
It’s not as simple as we would all like it to be. As far as I know, Wenger left the club with £200m in cash after 22 years of work, three League titles, and a new stadium which generates the highest match-day income in England. Yes, he also left problems with player contracts, he left a lot of talent undeveloped, he maybe should have left three years ago, and the club spent a lot of money to try to get a League win for Wenger. He was both a miracle worker and a man who made a lot of mistakes. And we are both cleaning up after those mistakes and able to do so because of the money he left behind. Emery couldn’t have bought anyone this summer if not for Wenger leaving that money on the table.
Yeah, I’m not into the all-the-blame narrative. I’m just saying, “miracle worker” is not a good description. A year ago today we were talking about a decade of slow decline, and some of that is on him. If he’s a miracle worker with that squad, then Emery’s a miracle worker for getting this squad on a 22-game unbeaten run. I just don’t see it. Or else, let’s dispense with the phrase, because it’s not at all helpful given its denotation.
Kroenke is to Arsenal what Trump is to America: one is destroying his club and the other is destroying his country.
Make Arsenal Great Again!!!
It reads more as if he’d been led to believe the path was clear for him to become technical director, but since Gazidis left, he could see that wouldn’t happen and didn’t want to be a glorified scout.
I think Emery plans on walking away after this season. Just my take. We’ve seen a drop off stylistically – less pressing as the season goes on, less playing out from the back, switches to a back 3 just to accommodate one player (Kolasinac), dropping Ozil. I think he’s packed it in. He’s shown enough this season to warrant a crack at a very good job elsewhere, but he’s decided Arsenal are not the club nor players for him.
Wow. That’s a heck of a take. I’d be shocked if Emery walks away from Arsenal. Maybe he gets fired but he’s got a huge guaranteed contract and I honestly see him as a coach on the way down. This will be his last big job. From here on out it will be national teams and mid-table Spanish clubs. Or no work at all.
Yep. Agree. Arsenal are the perfect club for him to buttress his resume. He went top table (financially) and won things, yes, but not the really big one, and wasn’t considered the right fit. Bailing after a year at Arsenal (and as you say bailing mentally bailing mid-season) is nota smart move, and damages his brand.
Im seeing reports that he’s fighting with Mislintat over targets. That seems credible. The tension inherent in the Director of Football model is that DOF identifies the targets, and the coach is on the hook for results. So there’ll be disagreements, even strong ones.
So, you’re saying is that Emery is using Arsenal to buttress his junk. Fair enough.
Poor form to pass up a caviar ‘buttress his junks’ opportunity.
Would downvote 🙁
My take is a little tempered now by the news that Mislintat is headed for Bayern. But I do see Emery adopting a much more pragmatic style and I don’t know why – it’s contrary to what we were sold on in the summer. Klopp, Guardiola, Pocchetino, Sarri – they all have very defined ideas of what they want to see and it rarely deviates.
Get ready though – if Emery stays and now starts to have more of a say in recruitment we’re in for a big disappointment. Ever Banega, James Rodriguez… these are not the answers.
My thought on Edu coming in was Mislintat had been deemed a bit of a bust and the club needed a pipeline into South American talent.
I don’t know. It all smells bad. I have no idea what’s going on with Ozil and why one side or the other won’t come out and say what the problem is. I can understand that we’ve spent a lot of money in the past 18 months on the roster and that January is not a good time to be shopping in the market, so we’re “keeping our powder dry” for the summer – then just come out and say that.
We’re back to the Wenger/Gazidis days of zero transparency. I’m really bummed today. Not a good day to be a fan of this club. I guess we have room to go down even further.
Jack, whatever the problem between Ozil and Emery is, being tight lipped about it is pretty much a SOP unless the player involved is Zlatan.
Trump estimates his wealth at $10billion while according to Forbes it’s $3b.
Trump just made up the number of hamberders from 300 tp a 1000.
I think I’m beginning to see a pattern here.
I’m sure he thinks his di#k is 10 inches long as well.
Remember, last summer, when the club was moving towards a “German” model? Mislintat, Mertesacker as youth coach… these were supposed to be just the start. Looks like with Edu maybe we want to go the Atletico Madrid route – become a port of entry for cheap South American talent before they move on to bigger paycheques, assuming we can somehow bypass the work permit problems. You don’t need Mislintat scouring the lower leagues in France and Germany for that.
i was in the army for 23 years. i used to ask the older guys (retirees) how will you know when it’s time to hang your hat? they all gave a similar reply; when it’s time to call it quits, trust, you’ll know.
one morning, i got up to go to work and sat on a stool in my garage at the work table to put my boots on. later, my wife came out to go to work and i was still sitting in the garage. when she turned the light on, i scared the sh*t out of her. thinking i’d already gone to work, she proceeded with the natural interrogative, “what are you doing sitting in the dark?” i replied, “i’m retiring”. she looked at me, quizzically, and asked, “just like that?” i replied, “look, i’ve been trying to put these boots on for almost an hour but it’s like i forgot how to. it’s time.” the old guys were right. while i didn’t announce my retirement intent right away, i knew at that moment that my time had come.
i’m sure petr cech had one of those moments; going to training, knowing he wasn’t going to play. he was probably like, “why am i doing this? what do i have to prove?” knowing he could be getting on with the next chapter in his life, he decided to hang his gloves. congratulations on a fantastic career, petr cech.
for the record, i still believe cech is a better keeper than leno. there were many goals arsenal conceded last season that were deemed errors by cech but i don’t agree. when your midfield allows professional players to simply tee off from just outside the area and it’s too hot for the keeper to take it cleanly, cech would save the ball into a “safe” wide area; only for another arsenal player to allow an opponent to beat him to the loose ball and finish a rebound. in street ball, we call that a hustle ball and have a high regard for the player that hustles to get to that loose ball first. even if it goes into touch by a yard or so, we say “play-on” because we appreciate the non-statistical quality called hustle.
arsenal players had no hustle. that’s not an error on cech. his team is switched off because they know they have an all-world keeper in goal. however, the keeper needed field players with hustle to help him keep the ball out of the net and they, continually, let him down. i guarantee that if you look at the “errors” cech had last season, 90% of them are supplemented by arsenal’s lack of hustle.
i’m really in my feelings about this one because soccer is a team sport. as a coach, a year or so ago, i really encouraged effort and focus from my players on anticipating something untypical happening. expect a keeper to drop a routine cross, a penalty to hit the crossbar, a shot to hit the keeper’s back, a keeper to save a penalty and give up a rebound, etc. it could be an error for either team. i would do exercises in training that were all about getting to a loose ball first and would punish a lack of awareness/hustle. my U19 team scored 48 goals this season and 8 of them were strictly because of hustle at a seemingly innocuous error that often goes unpunished. i’m living proof that you can coach hustle.
Always enjoy the personal anecdotes here. I have even more respect for your opinions, now Josh! Thanks for the insight. I wish my son had a coach who taught hustle. His team is oddly like Arsenal – lots of talent, but not always the hustle or fight needed to really shine.
Illuminating story, Josh. Thanks for sharing.
Yeah, had no idea you were a coach JoshuaD. Kudos to you.
Thanks for sharing JOSHUAD.. much appriciate the priceless pearls of wisdom from people who’ve been there and done it.
Big Hooah, Joshua, and thanks for your service. Thanks for coaching, too. You are a glutton for punishment. 🙂
On Mislintat, let’s not misinterpret the article. The reasons stated for leaving is not Arsenal’s lack of funds (the assumption I saw repeated above) but that he feels he is not going to be given the sort of visionary latitude over signings that Ivan Gazidis seems to have promised, aka the role of “technical director.” It’s still a bad look for the club given the timing, and maybe Arsenal will bend for him, but it’s also the nature of the business. When people at the top leave, it’s possible that the value and the role of certain employees changes. I think it’s a bit ironic that Sven has up until now mostly been appraised cautiously, with the sort of reserved mutterings of yeah, sure but he’s only really bought from Dortmund… and now that he might be leaving, it’s all Arsenal are incompetent, etc. The same thing is happening at various degrees with Wenger and multiple former players, and I will bet if Steve Bould decided tomorrow he will retire at the end of the season, it would be construed that it’s because of Arsenal’s failing fortunes. Because everything seems to come down to the fact that Arsenal are irrevocably, finally and imperturbably sailing towards the apocalypse. At least you would think so as an impartial observer reading these comments. Now please tell me how wrongly I am completely misinterpreting what you have to say and point out all the straw men I just lined up defaming your impeccable, impartial and unbiased judgment of everything Arsenal. I love that!
Here’s the relevant piece that adds the missing context, aka that this is about power at the club and not lack of money for transfers:
“”Wenger was no fan of the technical director concept and brushed aside the idea, which was one the club were keen to move towards. Since Gazidis departed to join Milan and handed over to a new internal management scheme led by the director of football, Raul Sanllehi, and the managing director, Vinai Venkatesham, Mislintat’s chances of becoming technical director have diminished.
He was the natural choice, but with Arsenal looking elsewhere, including towards their former midfielder Edu (currently a coordinator for Brazil’s national team), Mislintat has sensed that he would be sidelined, no longer having a decisive say on prospective signings. It seemed like his position, instead of growing as he had hoped, would be reduced to that of a glorified chief scout, which is not what he moved from Borussia Dortmund to do.””
Yeah I agree it’s not about the funding. I think it’s his wings being clipped by Raul. He seems to be behind the Ramsey contract decision and possibly supports Emery’s inputs over Sven’s, because the way we are playing (and the Ozil and Ramsey situations) it certainly doesn’t seem to fit the template that was created over the past 2 windows whereby the attack was raring to go, and the defense, GK and especially midfield were seemingly strengthened adequately enough. And we seem to get linked with Emery’s players a lot too.
So yeah, I’m chalking this up to Raul pushing others out of the way to claim the crown and do it his way.
Gazidis leaving out of the blue, withdrawing Ramsey’s contract offer (can’t think if a club who’s ever done that) and now this Sven saga. Some really weird stuff going on, there’s definitely a tug of war going behing the scenes.. who is involved at what level and who is winning, is anyone’s guess at this point in time.
It’s the usual jostling for power after the opening of an obvious vacuum. May the most unscrupulous, scurrilous scoundrel win, as usual.
the story of sven leaving is brand new news for me, however, it’s no surprise. emery says arsenal have no money and i believe him. the question is how does a club like arsenal have no money? if money is scarce, it’s not surprise that minslat and emery go round and round about where to spend it.
this goes back to the point i made last week about kronke buying usmanov’s arsenal shares. apparently, it cost kronke roughly £600 million to buy usmanov’s shares. that’s nearly $1 billion. kronke is worth over $8 billion but didn’t use his own money to buy the usmanov shares. he borrowed the money and is using the arsenal profits to payback his loans. that’s hella-shady! it’s also why arsenal have no money for transfers. so, kronke’s not put a single penny into the club and he’s taking money out of the club to pay back his £600 million loans + interest from the takeover. oh yeah, their only world class player is being iced out for no good reason. who wants to come work for arsenal?
Whatever we might have thought about Mislintat’s initial signings, they were mitigated by a) how new he was to the job, and b) a belief that, in time, he would see us unearth the kinds of gems he did for Dortmund. I was optimistic that, a few years from now, our squad would be carefully built based on what I believed would be his eye for quality. Sanllehi and possibly Edu will be looking to capitalize on networks rather than detailed analysis of players somewhat off the radar. Whether that works will remain to be seen, but for a club like Arsenal who want to pursue a parsimonious transfer strategy (and perhaps building by buying low, selling high), I’d have more faith in Mislintat getting us the kinds of signings that might be competitive.
Anyway, this is speculative, blah blah blah. I think I’m more annoyed about the timing of this departure, the further destabilization of a transition period, and the confusion about why an apparent recruitment guru like Mislintat would be essentially pushed out the door now, at the very time when Arsenal are in desperate need of rebuilding.
It’s all just exhausting.
It will always be incredibly sad that the group of Petr Cech, Mert, Koscielny, Cazorla, Ramsey, Rosicky, Giroud, Alexis and Ozil weren’t the ones to bring the first title to the Emirates.
Good luck Petr, and thanks for leaving the West London trash and coming over to our side.
The sky is always falling for Arsenal supporters so people losing their sh*t over this news is well…old news.
Mislintat didn’t win the most recent NLD in style nor did he just lose to West Ham in opposite and ignominious fashion.
But the focus will sharpen now on Emery and whether we collapse, or shore up or limp to the end of this season.
This summer and 2019-20 will be the real reckoning of whether this club can begin to recover some of it’s glory.
This summer, last summer, the summer before that, signing a little surprise in Ozil, the dry powder the season before that… When do you say “hold on a minute?”
I said “hold on a minute” after KSE became majority owners and once I understood what their ownership model was like, I immediately thought that Arsenal would be a mid table club bereft of sporting ambition.
It’s the hope that kills you and all, but I’m aware that this could be it for us. The end of a long and noble run of being one Europe’s top clubs and mentearong wistfully over Wengerball and wishing I ‘d never wanted him to leave.
Or I could suck it up yet again and stick around for more. When I click on 7 am Kickoff and it’s turned into a bread and baking website then maybe I’ll know.
Mislintat, Ramsey and Ozil are three top talents in their own fields / positions and we are losing them.
It is possible – possible – that pushing out your best talents can improve you, if they are somehow holding back others or sucking up oxygen or not working well with the rest of the team. (“Local optimization does not improve flow in the overall system”).
But it’s also possible that the more mediocre talents who have got to the top by understanding and wielding political power are winning.
Hey, c’mon now, we’ve still got Steve Bould!
After readin this comment I am imagining a high budget parody feature in which Iwobi has cunningly engineered a putsch over Ozil by rather improbably impersonating him and a gullible Emery, having been hoodwinked by Iwobi’s antics, cknties to start him week after week. Just imagine a stentorian cockney drawl narrating:
“It was only after the week 34 draw against Ipswich that Emery chanced upon Ozil, bound and gagged, in a broom cupboard at club level… and wondered to himself why he didn’t notice earlier that The Ozil he just berated at training doesnt have an accent and demonstrated an uncanny willingness to shoot with his right foot… then again; he has been like that all season. Emery gently closes the broom cupboard, ignoring Mesut’s muffled protests, and walks back to training, whistling to himself with his hands in his pockets. Merde, he ponders aloud to no one in particular, maybe I ought to put him on the team sheet tomorrow after all.
Just had a long comment go into moderation centered around the premise that Iwobi has actually been impersonating Ozil at training which is why Emery is refusing to pick him. Quite how Iwobi is also impersonating himself at the same time is still a mystery but I am working on that aspect of my theory.
There is also an uncharacteristically level headed appraisal of the situation at Arsenal over on ESPN, albeit with the typically click-baiting headline about the financial decisions That were made, and by whom, and in what context, which has resulted in Arsenal being hamstrung by the massive wages being spent in three players, two of whom are not considered essential by the man picking the teams. Now that things are bad, Wenger is, rather hilariously, being painted as some sort of misunderstood miracle worker, but it was under his management that those crisis situations over Alexis and Ozil developed and those situations are the reason we are where we are at the moment in a financial sense. I don’t need to remind the regulars how I feel about Arsenal Wenger, but maybe some folks need reminding that towards the end of his tenure, the club and its players were less than the sum of their parts, respectively, and the club is considerably less than one year removed from operating entirely and completely under his aegis. So sure, give him kudos for things he did well, but this retroactive reappraisal, though predictable, is sadly wide of the mark.
‘Wenger is, rather hilariously, being painted as some sort of misunderstood miracle worker’
I think that’s a bit harsh. He WAS a miracle worker and an amazing manager for a LOOONNNG time. When he wasn’t delivering trophies he was consistently delivering champions league and beautiful football.
I don’t know. Your comment just makes it sound like the guy delivered the bare minimum. I think it’s sad how quickly you’ve dismissed his achievements.
‘Wenger is, rather hilariously, being painted as some sort of misunderstood miracle worker’
I think that’s a bit harsh. He WAS a miracle worker and an amazing manager for a LOOONNNG time. When he wasn’t delivering trophies he was consistently delivering champions league and beautiful football.
I don’t know. Your comment just makes it sound like the guy delivered the bare minimum. I think it’s sad how quickly you’ve dismissed his achievements.
I was often the first to jump to Arsene’s defense, right up until the end, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t see the problems or the decline Arsenal had been in under his stewardship. I maintain that that decline had more to do with the relative lack of investment into the squad compared to the teams around us than with Wenger “losing the plot” etc., or any of the other popular and uncharitable tropes that abounded toward the end of his reign. Still, by his very nature Wenger’s presence encouraged a type of inertia that seemed to be a source of inhibition for the players, and the lack of confidence in him had reached a critical threshold. He wasn’t a bad manager but he had to go, giants Time was simply up.
Looking back at that just a few months later I’m seeing a lot of takes on Wenger that for my money are clouded by sentiment. I think there’s a real fear now among the supporters because we used to know that although Wenger had a glass ceiling that meant he would never win a title, he had a solid floor too that meant his team would always be in Europe a team least. Now that he’s gone, we’ve lost that security blanket and some folks sound like they are regretting that. Worse, it seems like some folks have forgotten how bad it was at the end. I remember fighting losing battles here against Tim and many others who told me in no uncertain terms that anyone would be better than Wenger because at least it would be different even if we finish 10th. Now, he is being remembered as a savior even as his successor struggles to undo the very knots he tied around the club, some for better and some for worse.
Taking his tenure overall, there can be no doubt he is one of the all time greats, Arsenal’s modern Herbert Chapman. I love him almost like a father and he is one of my chief role models in life. Sadly all the great ones eventually decline and Arsene’s decline was allowed to go for about two seasons too long. Love him as we all do, We cannot forget that we are reaping what we have sown from that.
Are we though?
We were building on Wenger’s legacy, but right now we seem to be dismantling it all, without a clear idea of what we’re trying to build. At least that’s how it looks from the outside.
It’s not the results or a lower floor that has me worried. It’s that I have no idea what we’re trying to build. What is the project I’m supposed to get behind?