Surely Arsenal will win this tie

Arsenal weren’t very good against BATE yesterday and I have to admit that even my very low expectations for the Arsenal were higher than the performance they put in. Before the game I tweeted a joke about how I felt Arsenal without Ozil were strong enough to beat BATE, it was a truth couched in a joke. Even without Özil and Ramsey, and putting Aubameyang on the bench, and injury to Bellerin, my expectations were that Arsenal should be able to just about edge the Belarusian side who haven’t played football in two months.

So, I have to admit that I was slightly upset by this performance at first. It wasn’t the bad passes or the fact that every pass took an extra touch to control that upset me. When the play-by-play announcer kept saying that Arsenal had to play more quickly I felt like he was both right and being disingenuous: it would be nice to play more quickly but the pitch simply wouldn’t let Arsenal do that.

What I was upset about was that we didn’t seem to have a response. We didn’t seem able to play some balls over the top, to get some crosses in, to draw them out of the box, and instead just kept trying to get Sead Kolasinac into the box. Apparently, Kolasinac is now our Ozil. If we don’t get him in the box creating something, we don’t have a second idea.

In fact, the second idea seemed to be remove Maitland-Niles and Xhaka and bring on Aubameyang and Torreira. That didn’t work, at all. After we stopped trying to get the fullbacks in, Arsenal got significantly worse.

There has been a lot of talk about Arsenal “winning ugly” lately and I just want to draw a distinction between “winning lucky” and actually winning ugly. Winning lucky is when you score with a deflected shot in the last minute or when your team sits back and looks shaky on defense for 60 minutes against some garbage side like Huddersfield.

Winning ugly is like what Chelsea used to do to us with Drogba and Costa. What Stoke did to us for a few matches. What Sam Allardyce did to Arsenal during his heyday back in 2005. Winning ugly is seeing the absolute state of that potato field that BATE pretended was a pitch and finding another way to gut out the win. By hook or by crook. Tottenham did it against Borussia Dortmund, Real Madrid against Ajax. When you can’t play the slick passes, kick their asses.

Arsenal don’t win ugly. We win lucky. Not every game, but especially lately. What we needed yesterday was for Arsenal to pull out a good ole fashioned ugly win. If you can’t play it on the ground, lump about a billion balls into the box, eventually they will make a mistake, the ball will bobble around, and we should have the talent to capitalize. Instead, we kept trying to probe and find neat combinations. And every time we did, the touch was just a little off, just a little bobbly.

Anyway, I caught myself having expectations of this team and quickly lowered them to “we will lose against these potato farmers” and got to enjoy the second half as some sort of disassociated brain inside a body wasting my time on this earth watching something not very good because I’m part of a group of people who do that and then complain about it after. In other words, I was living my best life. Basically, I decided that we will easily win this in the home game.

I will say that, as the king of managing my own expectations, I’m not quite able to just accept Unai Emery for what he is and expect less of him. Not yet, but I’m coming round.

I’m coming round to the idea that he’s a patsy, the fall guy, the band-aid that we ripped off the wound that was Arsene Wenger. That Wenger was probably cover for the fact that the club hierarchy is a mess. That the budget is a disaster. That the owner ain’t putting nothin in. That Arsenal’s ambitions are merely to exist. Not really to win anything. That’s where I’m starting to land with this club.

Maybe I’m wrong, but this has all the look and smell of the Wally Walker era Seattle Supersonics. Where the club hired coach after coach, player after player, each one was “the real problem”. They all got the blame while the executives at the top kept collecting huge paychecks, making all the real decisions, and watching other people take the fall.

From the statements made by Ivan Gazidis, Unai, and various members of the press, Emery’s job this year was to 1) improve specific players 2) play like “protagonists. I like the possession with the ball, I like good pressing against the other team. I prefer to win 5-4 than win 1-0.” 3) play better away from home and 4) improve Arsenal’s defensive structure.

Those were the expectations set by the club and the manager himself. For me, I just wanted us to play better defense, make fewer errors, and finish top four. Emery has surprised me by improving certain players but other than that our style of play is hideous, he’s spent way too much time fighting with Ozil, the defense is a swamp, we still can’t keep possession when we are pressed, we spent all of 90 minutes pressing this season (the one match against Tottenham), and our attack is both predictable and part of the problem with the defense.

Christ, I’m all over the place. Maybe I’m symptomatic of the Arsenal.

I’m sure we will beat BATE at the Emirates. He will probably start Ozil and Ramsey. I will end this mess by asking you two questions:

  1. What were your expectations from Emery’s Arsenal this season?
  2. Has he met them?

Qq

Bonus Tim: check out my behind the numbers piece for the Arsenal Review.

58 comments

    1. I don’t get the joke. Someone said something similar to me on the Arsenal Review. I don’t get it.

      1. The joke is that guy complaining about the free article he just read. I think he might not have clicked on the ‘read more’ and thought that was the whole article. Or he didn’t get what he was looking for from the piece.

        Sorry but your confusion is funny too.

        1. Oh I assumed it was related to Issac but I guess I figured there was something going around the internet that makes this funny on a higher level.

          I guess what I’m saying is raise your game. If you want to grab my attention you’re going to have to make a real purple. So, go on, buttress your junks.

          1. Ok Mr Selfimportant Smugginton.

            I hope you feel like a purple was when I first commented on this blog though. Such memories.

          2. I do apologise Tim, I usually do click on the “read more” on thearsenalreview but somehow forgot to and thought to myself “is Tim so annoyed about the game that he wrote a very short by the numbers review”? I have clicked on the read more and read the whole article

  1. I have little sympathy for Emery as a fall guy. He came in promising things it seems he has no intention of delivering. Even on playing the youth, we haven’t done that. Playing against Vorskla and Blackpool (yay that the Dirtb*g owner is out!) we still didn’t give youngsters as much time as we could have.

    Mostly, I think Emery is a bit of a control freak, which leads to him being…I want to say cowardly…but that’s harsh. Conservative. In his team selection/formation/attacking play. It also would explain his obsession with a system that utilises Kolasinac as the primary (sole?) creator and gets by on riding Lacazette and to a lesser extent Auba, while sitting Ramsey and Ozil. Or he just loves the U- shaped passing pattern that Pep hates. U for Unai.

    Disagree that Emery was set up to fail though. We bought the players we were supposed to buy (don’t bring up a backup RB though) and we had enough firepower to get through most of the league. He was supposed to bring some semblance of defensive order.It all seemed like there was a plan. Until Gazidis left and Raul took over. Nothing makes sense after that.

    Great distinction to draw between winning lucky and winning ugly!

    PS. Is that all? 😀

  2. I thought 6th. But I thought we’d also be seeing a very distinct new direction and style of play, which we are not seeing at all.

    Whether we like it or not, we’re in a new age of austerity as a result of a stadium being built;

    http://www.fieldofschemes.com/2018/03/28/13606/rams-stadium-to-cost-staggering-5b-or-not/

    Kroenke is spending nearly $5 billion on a new stadium and development and it’s mostly coming out of his pocket. Of course he’s going to lean on his other sports franchises to help finance this project.

    We don’t have the money to compete properly or fix this squad. It’s going to be a dismal several years until Kroenke sells the club.

    1. Ask the people of Saint Louis, the city that Kronke left “holding the bag” for “big bucks!” I agree with your comment relative to several years of poor quality football. The club will be used “as a cash cow.” Note that the only proven remedy for pest control is to remove the food source.

  3. My expectations were 5th or 6th this season, but also that we’d beat sh*t teams in the Europa League (not that we’d be more sh*t than them), and see an improvement in defense. Currently, Emery is meeting my first expectation, but not the other two.

    I have a feeling that Emery is going to take us to some very bad places, but…I’m not yet in a place to completely give up hope on him. Still clinging to the idea that another couple of transfer windows will see us back into the top four with something approaching an effective and consistent team.

    We seem able to rise to the occasion against the best sides, but look completely lost against the weakest sides. It’s like we’re the inverse of Wenger’s Arsenal right now.

    1. From what I see this is a home/away problem. Last season, that manifested itself vehemently (can something manifest vehemently? like an erection?) after the new year, which I attributed to the players downing tools against Wenger.

      This season, we are having a very similar problem: away form collapse, after january, players looking weirdly disinterested. I will also point out that Unai’s last season at Sevilla was a disaster. His record in away games was 0-9-10. If that doesn’t make you gulp, then I don’t know what will.

      I don’t know what’s going on for the first time in a long time. In the past, I could lean on my knowledge of the body of work Wenger gave us and the dozens of books. Emery’s body of work is weird and we really only have the one interview which I published here. I guess I’ll go back to that soon.

      On a side note, I started re-reading Harold Bloom’s “Falstaff Give Me Life”. It reminds me of a philosophy text in that sometimes I really have to go back and re-read sections to understand. Have you read it?

      1. I haven’t read that book, but I’m aware of Bloom’s arguments about Falstaff, as he’s written about the corpulent knight for decades. For him, Falstaff represents freedom from the superego, and is therefore the image of freedom itself; W. H. Auden put it in less Freudian and more Catholic terms when he said that Falstaff is the “comic symbol for the supernatural order of charity.” I.e., there’s a history of seeing Falstaff in terms of vitality, freedom, festival, comedy, playful subversion.

        Bloom’s take on Falstaff makes more sense when read in the context of Freud, Auden, AND Bakhtin’s theory of carnivalesque (which you can find in his introduction to “Rabelais and His World” and, indirectly (but specific to Shakespeare), in C. L. Barber’s “Shakespeare’s Festive Comedy”).

        I love Falstaff, and I’m sympathetic to critics in the company of Auden/Bloom. But, you know, as fun as he is, Falstaff’s primary attributes lead to the death of several hundred soldiers (even if it’s treated comically in 1 Henry IV)! But put me in a room with Falstaff, Prince Hal, or Henry IV, and I choose Falstaff every single time.

  4. Pretty confident we’ll win the tie, but I do feel like it’s down to Emery that we’re in this poor position. He seems to have little tactical or strategic plan, beyond playing a few players that appear to be favorites.
    Jenkinson isn’t great, but surely he’s good enough to play RB against a team like Bate, which then lets us play 4 at the back. Both Guend and Iwobi are promising. But we can’t depend on them at the expense of Ramsey and Ozil. And if we’re not going to use Ramsey or Ozil, don’t send Smith Rowe on loan. I’d rather have had him in there yesterday than pretty much any of the attacking midfielders we did.
    Very disappointing.

  5. With 5 post Wenger signings (now 6) and a new coach I was expecting a definite playing personality of the team to have emerged by now. So far my expectations are far from being met. We don’t look better than or different from our opening match against City. No progress whatsoever.

  6. “I’m coming round to the idea that he’s a patsy, the fall guy, the band-aid that we ripped off the wound that was Arsene Wenger.”

    Same reason there was no budget for January’s TW.
    We’re not investing in Emery’s vision unless we plan to keep him on next season.

    This whole shebang was crocked by having to force Wenger out ‘too soon’.
    The new backroom team needed another whole season– and 3 TW’s to get things worked out. When that couldn’t be weathered– Arsene had to go.
    Gazidis got outvoted on Arteta– Emery was pulled from thin-air– and Ivan pulled his Milan parachute cord.

    With Ivan bailing– Sanllehi pulled off a second coup during the Wenger Out-one– and has leveraged it into Sven’s departure.

    jw1

    1. This comment will go under the radar but it’s very perceptive. Add to this that all the summer signings were done without Emery’s input and you see a clearer picture that someone(s) above him were pulling the strings and that he was sort of set up to take the fall. I agree that Sven bailed. I agree that Gazidis bailed. I agree that Sanlehi is now 100% to blame for everything that happens from here on out.

      I do think that they hope he can improve the players and in a way he already has.

      I couldn’t imagine any team buying Kolasinac before this season, I still can’t but it’s a lot closer and I think we are almost getting value for the huge salary we are paying.

      Bellerin was done. He was done as a player at Arsenal. Now he’s virtually a legend already.

      Holding has been remarkably good.

      Guendouzi (a Sven purchase) was a great buy.

      No one thought Lacazette could play CF (except me) and he’s been incredibly good this season.

      Iwobi is finally dividing opinion, last season it was all negative.

      1. So are you guys suggesting that Raul may have some plan to get a manager he wants in the summer and he wasn’t for Emery?

        1. Emery was a clever choice– a good manager for the short-term. If UE works miracles (CL)? He gets extended and Raul/Huss/Vinai have funds. Big on Torreira and Guendouzi– far less certain on Suarez. Not sure how much influence Emery will have on incoming personnel.

          jw1

  7. To your questions…
    1) seriously nothing more than what last season produced.
    2) we will see if they get to the Europa final, then yes, else no

    Listen, when you analyze what went down during that coaching choice fiasco (Arteta has been chosen, then Emery out of nowhere), you will see that plain as day, Emery was meant to be a stop-gap, a place-holder, a word hyphen word. You will see Arteta running Arsenal the season after next, but first, this summer will see utter chaos from a personnel perspective.
    Out (meaning sold, leaving, or tossed): Welbeck, Cech, Koscielny, Lichsteiner, Jenkinson, Elneny, and this chap named Ramsey. Ozil will leave only if Mourinho is coaching somewhere and demands him.

    Speaking of Ozil… You know that the Arsenal system NEVER suited his abilities. He always needed a fast counter-attacking side to feed, like he had around him in Madrid. Arsenal COULD have that, but refuse to.

    Anyway, those in charge see a plethora of talent coming back from loan (Macey, Nelson, Smith-Rowe, Chambers) and talent in the Academy (Medley, Gilmour, Willock, Sheaf, Nketiah, ) and assume the first team will be covered for some time. Regardless of the names, you will see many of them making up for the lack of players coming in.
    Ooh, rant over.

  8. The players inherited by Emery could have given us better performances and results overall this season, if the manager was using them well and rotating properly.

    In the first 10 matches of the season, he was changing players at halftime of every game.

    And when he seemed to have gotten the balance right, as at the time we played Tottenham, with Torreira settling in as the defensive shield everyone knows he could be, Emery changes his tactics again.

    Since the Tottenham game, it seemed difficult to understand what the instructions are, to all the midfield players. They all seem to be playing on a straight line, and no one (except when Guendouzi takes the initiative) seems detailed to take charge of the creative needs of the team.

    in the absence of the creative spark, you tend to see players like Iwobi, Mkhitaryan always dirfting in to the middle from wide positions, and doing them predictably so.

    Since he now insists to start Auba and Laca mostly, it seems none of them is detailed to the flanks, like he did when the season started. Both are stationed central, and again Laca makes the sacrifice of coming deep to get the ball and playing often like an auxiliary no.10.

    in effect, both the midfield and attack are not organized in any way. Yet he doesn’t seem to have done any work with the defence. The players are mainly just fielded based on who’s available and not necessarily because understandings have been forged.

    All these is Emery’s work. Wenger did better with the midfield work and the attacking parts. The defence was our problem minus our lean resources.

    I have always wondered what Wenger could have achieved last season if Aubameyang had been with the team from the start of the season and we did not have to deal with a sulking Alexis at all.

    That Aubaemeyang gave 14 goals as at december to Emery, with Laca still fully fit has not been turned into any advantage for the club.

    When Arsenal played Wolves at the emirates, Emery changed the formation at the beginning of second the half to 3 at the back, just like Wolves wwre playing. But for the bar, Wolves would have won the game in stoppage time.

    before axing Ozil, the guy has scored 4 goals in the league and provided two assists. in 13 matches.

    What is the stat for whoever Emery has chosen to replace him?

  9. Expectations, clearly stated at the start of the season were:

    1. Get better in November and over winter, which is when Wenger’s Arsenal traditionally stutter

    2. Improve our defence, which was bad and disorganised under Wenger.

    The answers are no and no.

  10. “1.What were your expectations from Emery’s Arsenal this season?
    2.Has he met them?”

    My response got lost in ether or moderation so I’ll repost without the swear words. 🙂
    Zero expectations for this season.
    Picked Arsenal to place fifth on 72-74 points only because I figured someone else would implode harder( Mou)

    By virtue of low expectations I can’t be disappointed with the job he’s doing.
    People confuse this with support, it’s not.

    When Emery was announced as the Europa League specialist I said if winning it three times with one club consecutively makes him that, then it also makes Zidane the CL specialist and any club with money should hire him pronto.

    I also said Emery wasn’t at the Klopp and Pep level so any comparison with these two and their progression in PL was utterly pointless.
    Some of the harshest Emery critics now said then that it was too early to say.

    Arsenal are a mess at every level from top to bottom .
    The Ozil situation proves it, no matter who’s decision it is to not play him.

    Losing to Bate while out of form , away on a potato patch wasn’t as shocking as most think.
    When Arsenal fail to beat them at home I’ll join the Emery out crowd .
    I’m keeping my pitchfork at the ready.

    Sorry for reposting if the first one reappears.

  11. Everything said, let’s get this straight. Emery was a better and more logical choice than Arteta. If Arteta is that great, why is he still riding Pep’s coattails? And why is he not coaching one of the mid tier prem teams like Southampton, Wolves, West Ham. Everton and watford both have decent squads, and managers who fit the “emerging manager” template. Why didnt Leicester push out the boat?

    There are a sh1ttonne of clubs that the great Arteta could have been managing at, if he that great a prospect.

    Im not sure that Emery’s troubles are a good reason to beat the Arteta drum.

    1. Completely agree with all that.

      Going back to our exchange in the previous thread you found so funny
      ( Im here to entertain you should now by now 🙂 ). My only point was that losing to inferior club especially on a crappy surface ( the ultimate equalizer) isn’t so uncommon.
      Bayern lost to Bate3:1 in 2012 and that was in a season they won the Bundesliga by 25 points and started the season on a 9 game winning streak until they lost to Bate.
      Bate topped the group after two matches beating Lille away and Bayern at home.
      Maybe not quite the “potato farmers” then are they.

      1. And I agree. Generally, though Tom, we look an ugly side, with only Plan A…. get it to Kolasinac.

  12. If we continue in this vain, Arsenal will become a club that loses its commercial appeal along with its identity. Our identity has played such a big role in our commercial performance over the last 15 years and its being underestimated. We went almost 10 years without a trophy and our identity was our saving grace. If we go the route of being happy with sixth AND playing badly, we lose out on far more than people are thinking. We have already being surpassed by Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea, while the Spuds are on the brink of overtaking us commercially. Meanwhile we are trying to sell our most talented and commercially important player.

    These are not worth sacrificing for this manager. He has no history of sustained success or as in the Spuds case, a discernable style that appeals to a global audience. We will be getting less from league position and attendance, so our only way to succeed or gain an upperhand, is commercially.

    This style of play will also determine the calibre of player we will attract and our treatment of talented players such as Ozil will determine the quality of player we can convince to join us. One of style and player management will determine our ability to sign top players, and currently, we seem to have neither of those.

    I appreciate a manager trying his best and having the best intentions, but if his methods do not work, it is not an insult to say he has failed. People will say that he hasn’t had time, but is anyone looking at the current climate we are operating in and how much time coaches have to prove themselves. I don’t think he was denied signings in January, the club just needed him to prove himself before committing millions to the wrong coach, because if he fails, we could end up with an Ozil situation/s.

    I understand the need for perspective when analysing individual performances, and isolating the analysis to that single game. A lot of criticism of Emery is more about the long term than the individual games themselves. Everyone is afraid of where we are headed because this style of football isn’t sustainable and lacks a clear structure for future successes. There is logic to everything he does, he is a top level manager after all, but looking at things from a long term perspective, he comes up short and as a man, he is responsible for the outcome of his decisions, be they right or wrong.

    1. This is a very astute comment. The identity we forged has commercial value. This new iteration of Arsenal is already annoying many fans. I like to believe that although everything is about the football and winning, we’re Arsenal fans for more than that. After all our fanbase grew even in the much denounced trophy drought period. How?

  13. Although this was embarrassing I’m sure we’ll pull it round next week & all will soon be forgiven & forgotten.
    I don’t know what’s going on with sick boy, but hope it’s not terminal because there’s no creativity in the side (Kolasinac our main assister🙄), and Iwobi needs a break or an attacking midfield partner.I think Emery should swallow & play Ozil in the return fixture.
    It will be interesting to how Hleb manages the Emirates surface because he didn’t do too badly on the Bate pitch until he tired.

    1. Ooof, that is not a good read. Sanllehi does not sound like the guy I want leading things. And he seems to get credited for a lot of things but I’ve also read elsewhere that Barca have a big backroom of directors and there’s no one person pulling the strings there.

    2. Yikes. That makes him look like a disaster, perhaps aside from managing to get PSG to pay a silly amount for Neymar. But a crap load of wasteful spending that will never happen under Kroenke at Arsenal. And perhaps only the fact that they had Messi and the rest of the La Masia core kept them from foundering. Very much not promising for Arsenal.

    3. Thanks for this link.

      I don’t want this guy at Arsenal. At least not in charge. He was probably supposed to be our own shark to swim in the shark infested waters of player contracts, but never in charge of the whole aquarium. He’ll eat us alive.

  14. At the start of the season, I only had 2 expectations: 1. Stay in the Top 4 race until April or even May, while narrowing the gap with Spurs; 2. Improve Arsenal’s defensive record.
    The season is not over yet, but so far Emery hasn’t met my expectations. The Gunners are 10 points behind Spurs (who signed nobody in the summer and winter), and the only reason why they are still in the Top 4 race is because Man United and Chelsea have imploded/are imploding under Mourinho and Sarri. And the defending is awful with already 37 goals conceded from 26 PL games. We’re basically on course to finish the season with more than 50 goals conceded (as bad as last season).

  15. I agree with JW1 above and the subsequent follow ups. I don’t think Unai is the “fall” guy. I an and Raul could not get a coach they wanted due to $. They were still paying Wenger. Management moved to a less desirable but financially palatable choice- Unai.

    Artena was not a cost problem but a control problem… He wanted veto input to new players, something he has not earned yet).

    Raul will want a more dynamic coach, someone who will move Arsenal forward. Unai knows it that’s why he has lost energy, and that translates to players too. Ozil knows it that’s why he is being patient. Raul was part of team that gave Ozil bumper contract. They are saving $ for new coach and players. Folks like Raul who was at Barcelona is not working at Arsenal for it to be a “small potatoes” team.

    My expectations- top 6 but not top 4, show improved prep for games based on opponents and fix defense. My expectation was also NOT much with offense. We were already good last year and only got better. Offense was never the problem, defense was. And we were on the path to righting it with out summer purchases. The problem is that Unai started mucking up the offense! Urgh. And his top/only (?) possession plays leverage FB which only make our defense worse!

    Maybe Rafa is our Target this summer! I just cannot watch our possession plays anymore. Whatever good highlights from this year was not much different to last year. That identity was before Unai.

  16. Yes,we will probably win the tie next week and go through(but don’t call me Shirley)
    But what if we don’t,and/or finish outside the top 6.Hard to imagine but Wolves are looking good,and we most certainly are not.
    I don’t think for a minute,Kroenke will want to pay off Emery and his staff midway through a contract.Those millions and lots more are clearly needed to pay for the stadium.Arsenal are way down the list of priorities.

  17. About a week or so ago I had a thought. Around 25 years ago the Arsenal board rejected an inexperienced hire in favour of the safer option. Bruce Rioch was appointed because no one knew how Arsene Wenger – favoured by Dein- would fare in England. A much bigger deal then than today. This summer we appointed the safer option over Arteta – Gazidis’ pick. I get all the reasons for why this made sense and how Arteta has literally zero experience.

    I’m not saying we have to hire Arteta or even that we should fire Emery. I’m not there yet. Just making the point that sometimes logic isn’t the best guide.

    1. How are you Shard?
      Regarding my prognostication of Arsenal events? Being near dead-on since a year ago last December? You were (at least) given a trustworthy assurance– I’d indeed nailed many of the details in way in advance– in public forum.

      I also wanted Arteta last Summer. Made far more sense (to me)– for all the right reasons– than disqualifying him over ‘lack of experience’.

      Short-list of ‘whys’:
      Former Gunner captain
      Attached at the elbows of both Wenger and Guardiola
      Contributed to and fostered mindset and methods of PL’s top club
      Continuance of Arsenal character and tradition.

      All quite simple. No bombshells there.
      Here’s one that is–
      Bringing Arteta back to AFC– successful or not– breaks the apparent chain of succession at City. Arteta, becomes the bridge to wherever the Ivan/Raul/Sven triumvirate wish to lead the club. Arteta does well– wonderful. Arteta does middling-to-poor– he’s not getting the City job. Ever.

      Longer-term win, from a long-game plan.

      jw1

  18. I think we are underestimating the “save money” and Liverpool are our model statements.

    Raul needs to reshape the squad. Ramsey, gone. Salary saved. Ozil to be sold (and just about anyone else they can). Salaries saved and transfer funds created.

    Stars replaced with quality journeymen playing for a manager who’s brief is sustainable, hopefully winning football.

    Dreams of artistry dead. UE works for Raul, and picks his team accordingly.

  19. Shard, Arsenal is too big a job for a guy who’s only ever been Pep’s assistant, and for whom, far as I can see, there isn’t a stampede to hire. Let’s see how he does at Leicester if Puel goes, shall we?

    Great comment about Raul, but I haven’t seen enough yet of him to make up my mind on yea or nay. But as I already said, I’m not loving the Arsenal of Kroenke and Sanllehi.

    But I can sense among gooners that Emery has lost a lot of his gloss. I don’t want to put it any more strongly than that for now.

    Are gooners a bunch of entitled people? Probably. And yes, my feel isn’t science based. But it can clearly be felt. Emery was a good hire by Arsenal, and hey, a year from now, if he’s still in charge, it could all look and feel different. But my sense is that he’s on a sticky wicket (I leave you to explain that to our American friends here:) )

  20. Haha. Not even going to try.

    I agree that it could all look very different a year from now if Emery stays. I hope it does. I just don’t think it very likely, with the way we’re playing and the Ozil situation. Only winner there is Ozil if he’s prepared to stay no matter what, especially if he has other players’ support. I’m more concerned about Raul, but we’ve covered that.

    I honestly want to know what we think will happen if Arteta takes over. At the moment it seems like Arsenal is too big a club for Emery too, despite (or because of?) his experience with PSG.

    On the other hand Arteta knows the club, was an exceptional captain and leader, and although it’s a guess, he has a clear philosophy which would suit our players. If all he does is just provide some training sessions he’s picked up from Pep, and gets out the way, surely we’ll be better off? Like Molde’s manager who’s now turned up in Manchester. In what ways would the job be too much for Arteta?

    1. Ha! Wished I’d seen this post before replying to you upthread.

      Though? Not sure the timing would be the same for Arteta now. Clear to me it was Ivan that was driving that choice. Raul was the spanner in those works.

      The set of circumstances last June called for a manager that could come in, possibly fail and be disposable. A long-term caretaker. If the Newman was somehow successful? A win-win. The club pivots and builds.

      Would have rather had Arteta in that role.
      For all the reasons I’d posted upthread.

      jw1

      1. Im kind of relieved we didn’t go for Arteta in the end.

        Let him run his work experience project somewhere else. There are good premiership jobs that you could have seen him in, but weirdly, no one went for him. Are we arguing that he’s the chosen one for Arsenal or City alone? That’d be strange.

        The job of succeeding Arsene had and still has a HUGE repair and rebuild element, and it may even swallow Emery. It’s not a job for guy who needs training wheels. If all that was needed for big jobs like Arsenal coach was someone steeped in the ethos of the club, Keane and Scholes would be in joint charge of United.

        And Arteta would have walked into the Everton role.

        1. See your view on this. Respectfully, it’s one that is held by many.
          But I have to stanch the idea that Arteta will be taking any job, elsewhere.
          Would you, if you had a tacit agreement to take the reins, intact, one day at City?

          Why then Arsenal? It was the ‘one-off’ for Arteta IMO. He’d dreamed of it his entire time at the club. And, the timing was right; following two years apprenticeship under Pep– to follow Arsene. Gazidis was certainly ready to pull that trigger.

          With what occurred directly after that snubbing? Arteta would never come here now. It was about the continuity in the culture, and following Arsene that mattered most.

          The longer he stays at City, the more likely he’s the successor-in-waiting. That no one has ‘stampeded for him’? Take a moment. Why not? With exposure to the minds and processes of two all-time great managers? Literally, Pep’s right-hand– there is none. No insinuation, nor pithy remark can change the quality Arteta would have brought to the job.

          Far more likely at this point– with the helm of City as his beacon?
          Arteta is giving any callers a simple– ‘no, not interested’.

          On the point of whether Mikel Arteta would have been a success at Arsenal had he come? No idea now. The tea-leaves I’d read so accurately for the better part of 7 months a year ago– tell me nothing now.

          jw1

          1. You have ZERO evidence of a tacit agreement between City and Arteta to one day take the reins.

            Zero.

          2. True.
            But I’ve ‘read’ a lot of things correctly in the last year. Took a lot of flak– for quite awhile– for expressing them. So do feel free.

            +++

            Had zero evidence of Arteta being hired at Arsenal– back in December 2017– yet that’s what I predicted. Took some jeers over that for the next six months.

            As it played out– it was a miss on a sure thing.
            May 18: Ornstein: It’s Arteta, not yet but soon.
            May 22: Ornstein: Arteta didn’t pull out, that is for sure.

            +++

            Then, predicted without doubt in February 2018 that Arsene Wenger would step down at season’s end. Predicted the date then too. Stated Wenger would announce it on a Friday– April 27th. Actually happened a week earlier on a Friday– April 20th.

            +++

            Not claiming any kind of second sight. But my summation of smaller events gave me confidence to believe those things would occur, and when. To say so and stand behind them.

            In this case? Arteta taking over at City? With a tacit agreement?
            Seems plausible from everything I’ve been privy to.

            And you have ZERO evidence he doesn’t have one.
            Lord willing, we’ll both be around to find out. 😉

            jw1

    2. “On the other hand Arteta knows the club, was an exceptional captain and leader, and although it’s a guess, he has a clear philosophy which would suit our players. If all he does is just provide some training sessions he’s picked up from Pep, and gets out the way, surely we’ll be better off? “

      Ok, I’ll bite.
      What is Arteta’s clear philosophy Shard?

      Also, if only it were that easy to copy and implement Pep’s style of play.
      Even Pep couldn’t do it well until he bought the second keeper( after his first one turned out to be a dud, good luck having Kroenke sanction such a do over btw)

      It cost City £300m to replace the keeper and the back line so that Pep could play out the back, and he did it in one season.

      At the rate Arsenal are looking to spend, it would’ve taken Arteta 7 transfer windows to built his title winning defense by which time his front line would’ve needed rebuilding.

      It’s all a pipe dream.

  21. Guys, I get all that. I genuinely wanted to know what ‘the club is too big for his first job’ idea means in actual fact. Like some examples of what might be too much for him to handle.

    Tom, I never meant he needs to or will copy Pep. He’s learned from Wenger and Pep, and he’s learned at La Masia, and has played in France and Scotland and at a mid-level club like Everton. He’s supposedly very astute. So, he’s got lots of influences and ideas. As for his philosophy, I don’t feel like looking now but there was an interview he did while still at Arsenal where he talked about that.

    Jw1, I have the same feeling as you about it being too late to get Arteta now, but I think that there is a chance that Emery, and even Raul, could be gone if we don’t get top 4/win the EL next season. After all, we did sack Rioch for Wenger a year later (I know I know. I’m not being serious with that example) Maybe the idea of reviving/saving that culture, even without Ramsey would appeal.

    Anyway, it’s all very uncertain now.

  22. 1. What were your expectations from Emery’s Arsenal this season?
    – Pick up those downed tools
    – Tighten up the defense
    – Buy an actual midfield and play it
    – Get coaches to actually train the youngsters
    – Play with some semblance of a plan
    – Finish 5th
    – Get to Europa final

    2. Has he met them?
    – Yes, for a while. I sense wavering. And the Ozil thing is bad, very bad.
    – Yes and no. Probably more no than yes
    – Yes
    – Yes
    – Apparently not
    – So far, no
    – fivethirtyeight says there is a 1/10 chance of that, so No for now.

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