Arsenal’s Griswold Christmas

We’ve seen this all happen before – injuries, poor organization, thrashed by a better team, referees just being referees, and the fans going after each other on social media. However, for the first time in Arsenal history, everything bad that happens to Arsenal every year is happening all at the same time. It’s like the perfect whatchumacallit. You know, like in that movie… Christmas Vacation. It’s a Griswold Christmas at Arsenal.

As the game kicked off it was clear that Mikel Arteta’s game plan was like when Clark tried to hang the lights. He just handed the entire thing over to Rudy and told him to untangle the bundle and check every single light. In this analogy I’m not sure who “Rudy” is, maybe Ødegaard? Who was actually untangling the bundle? Like in the movie we never found out. The bundle was just mysteriously untangled. The next scene we have is just Arteta nailing his glove to the roof, falling off the roof, and shooting a giant icicle into Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Yuppies’ house next door.

My favorite tactic in Arsenal matches now days is when we earn a goal kick and we line up like we are going to try to play the ball out the back but then the defense covers our players and Leno sees that his only option is to pass to Xhaka. That’s when he gets the shits and waves everyone forward so he can kick it long to Aubameyang. The whole point of playing the ball out the back is to draw the opposition defenders on to you, which is exactly what we are doing, and then to exploit superior passing speed to create space, and openings up top.

It’s an indication of the fear that Aubameyang spoke about in his post-match presser. Maybe it’s a healthy fear, maybe we really are this bad, and maybe, just maybe, we shouldn’t be playing this way?

Why we are playing this way is part of the confusing ball of christmas lights at Arsenal these days. In order to play out the back, they have to practice it. But we aren’t very good at it, it is easily shut down by the opponents, and we often just capitulate and kick it long. That means that Arteta is spending a good portion of his practice sessions training Arsenal to do something that, in the real world, we don’t/can’t do.

Extending the Christmas lights analogy, Arteta is often like Clark when he’s about to turn on the power to the lights. There he is, standing on the front lawn, giving his family a big speech about the spirit of Christmas, and then staring in disbelief at his roof as connects the two cords and nothing happens. When his tactics do work, it’s exactly like Ellen flipping the switch in the garage: brief moments of blinding light, followed by long periods of disappointing darkness, and no one knows why things are working.

People will point to the injury situation and that for sure took its toll. But we are no strangers to injuries at Arsenal. I remember writing about van Persie about 6 months before his breakout 18 months at the club and how he had played more matches for his national side than for Arsenal in the previous two years. We have also been forced to field some absurd lineups in the past: Jenkinson in the 8-2 loss to Man U comes to mind, the double-crab-pivot of Denilson and Song for 6 matches, any time Yaya Sanogo started. But yesterday’s lineup against Man City was like Ellen’s dessicated Turkey corpse dinner. As soon as Clark cut into it, the whole thing collapsed and breathed a death sigh.

I don’t know what sins we are paying for but starting Cedric at right wing back, with Chambers as RCB, and Saka on the right wing was only made worse by starting Kolasinac at LCB, Tierney at LWB, and Smith Rowe at left wing. In the middle were Ødegaard and Xhaka. I don’t want to get back to tactics but even if the starting lineups were ok (they really weren’t) what Arteta often did was play Xhaka as the lone DM, with Ø, S, A, and S-R all allowed to press high up the pitch. Manchester City cut through that supposed press and our “defensive” midfielder like Clark through the breast of that poor bird.

Even adding Aubameyang, Ødegaard, Smith-Rowe, and Saka as the gravy up top wasn’t enough to cover for that horrifying lineup. I know that we have been unlucky with injuries but it’s not luck that we have to play Xhaka, Cedric and Kolasinac: the club have intentionally purchased these players, put them on large wages, extended their contracts, and then failed to replace them. It’s really that simple.

But maybe you’ll say it’s not that simple? Who were Arsenal supposed to bring in to play backup right back against the League champs? We were after all thrashed by a better team.

That is a fact. They are better in every way. They have a better training facility, academy, manager, upper management, owners*, and players. As Ellen says so succinctly at one point in the film: “I don’t know what to say, but it’s Christmas, and we’re all in misery.”

Yeah, Arsenal need to dig themselves out of this situation. Five plus years of atrocious decision making at the club can’t be undone in one season much less one game. With the injuries, the way the club are functioning, the way the manager keeps making mistakes, and the malaise I sense among the players, I went into the game with low expectations and they were somehow lowered. Another quote from Christmas Vacation works here: “How can things get any worse?!?!? Take a look around you Ellen! We’re at the threshold of Hell!”

Guys I hate to break it to you but we are on the threshold of hell and things can get worse. For example, we could pass over into hell. Imagine if Auba, Laca, Ødegaard, Smith-Rowe, and Saka have injuries this season. Getting Ben White and Gabriel back and match fit won’t make that better, folks.

Just to add to the misery, emptying his shitter in the sewer, the match official decided to both give Xhaka a red card for a rash challenge and also not call a foul when Chambers was punched in the face. I don’t like to raise the referees as an excuse (Arteta does that plenty, thanks) but when I first watched the Xhaka tackle I thought he was a fucking idiot, but he did win the ball. So, while it was rash, I didn’t see what was that wrong with it. I’ve seen worse tackles than that (Burnley had three worse tackles today) which didn’t get a red card.

I know that the refs have been given more leeway to allow fouls to go unpunished – to improve the flow of the game or whatever nonsense – and this is happening in both Serie A and Ligue Un but that only explains letting the foul go against Chambers. Not why Xhaka was sent off. But it’s a judgement call and I can’t say the referee was wrong to make either of them. I can say that’s not how I would have called the game.

However, right now I’m seeing a lot of people take the position of “if you don’t see the clear conspiracy against Arsenal you’re a moron” take. This goes along with “if you don’t want the manager (sacked/backed) you’re a moron” take. Fine. I guess we are all just going to call each other morons from here on out, but may I just suggest something? If you’re going to just call people who disagree with you names (instead of trying to understand them) I would suggest picking some bits from Clark’s big speech about his boss:

“I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is!”

You know, at least show some creativity.

I guess Arsenal fans are at each other’s throats even at the best of times. And even when we were winning things, people will always have players they don’t like, decisions by the manager they hate, transfers that aren’t good enough, and the refs will always be 100% against us no matter what happens. But when the club are in 20th place, -9 goal difference, scored 0 goals, players injured all over the field, the referees making tight calls against us in every game, the owners absentee, the transfer business strange, the same players getting sent off for the same dumb tackles we’ve seen hundreds of times from him, and we lose 5-0? I guess everything just gets thrown into overdrive and there we stand “at the threshold of hell!”

If you’re worried whether things can get worse, I think they can. Beyond injuries to the best players, there could very easily be a player revolt. And I don’t think that’s a far-fetched possibility given the way we play football.

Qq

*Not better in the human sense, just in the fact that they can and do just stream money into the club and in a free market system that equates to “better”.

42 comments

  1. The whole Football Club is in a dark place. From top to bottom and outside to supporters of all ilk. I honestly think that Arteta thought he could fix the problems internally, and in doing so, bring the fans back – ALL fans, those who love and those who hate Arsenal Football Club. The main problem he has though, is that this malaise is ten years in the making and he’s had less than two years to finx everything that needs fixing. I keep saying, how long has it taken for Man Utd to drag themselves out of the post Fergie era – 8 years? 9? Even today, they didn’t look very good. Then the old devil raised its head in the form of the referee (Mike Dean in this case), not giving a foul for a foul and allowing United to play on and score while Ruben Neves picked up the bits of his ankle that Pogba had spead all over the ground.

    Yes, the officials ARE bad – so bad if they were a proper up front, accountable, decent organisation, they would be investigated for fraud. But, they are run by Mike Riley, and we all know his history with Arseanal Football Club.

    I digress. Arteta needs help. Who does he get it from? Not the owners, not the board not the Management team above him, not the staff within his own management team, not the players, not the officials, not the media, MSM and SM or Bloggers, and most of all, (it seems) not the so called supporters of AFC.

    He cannot expect the players to buy into a process that only he believes in. That’s the sad truth.

    Until that connundrum is solved, we can expect more grief, more pain, more embarrassment. It’s up to Arsenal Football Club’s whole family to sort it out – and that won’t come by being divided.

    It’s got to be an “Arsenal against the World” effort.

    Get behind it!

    1. Watched the United game. Bad tackle, but ‘picking up bits of his ankle’? No. Let’s drop the hyperbole.
      Xhaka, bad tackle, very similar but probably worse. I’d want a red if I was the opposing team.
      None of these isolated incidents matter though, they aren’t game-changing (the United one might have been, Wolves were on the front foot all game), City had beaten us before the first whistle blew. Which is the saddest indictment of Arsenals Arsenal I can muster. At our lowest we had an inkling me might lose but we had an expectation we wouldn’t lose our verve; our attacking instinct; we might score a brilliant goal.
      Now none of us think we’ll even have a shot on target, and that’s damning enough for me.

    2. I will get behind Arsenal anyway. Same way the away fans did at City. But getting behind Arteta and Edu? Unfortunately no. Rookie CEO, TD and Manager have been handed over keys to the vault and they have blown it. Maybe Arteta will make it good one day. But right now his vision is not getting translated into reality. It’s not entirely his fault but that lack of experience is showing after 18 months.

      A rookie manager needs an experience DOF to support him during difficult times but Edu is too busy partying with an ex-colleague who left under suspicious circumstances. What exactly is Vinai doing about it? What about the owners? This club is a rudderless ship. And the failings of the owners cannot be hidden behind the fig leaf of encouraging performances on pitch as Arteta is making the classic rookie mistake of trying too many recipes for success.

  2. The way Arsenal invents new lows, I guess by season end we break a record where we have negative GD.

    But if this is what it takes for us to take action then so be it. I will be here waiting for change. How amazing it will be if we be fighting in the bottom half of the table and maybe just get relegated. I really wanna be positive but I will be kidding myself because deep down I know Arteta ain’t ripe for this game.

    At this point we are Amateur Club. Our coach is a rookie, we rely on our rookies, we have signed more rookies, Edu is a rookies and the owners are rookies when it comes to football in Europe.

    I am so sad.

    1. It is possible to write well about what might be for me, the most horrendous Arsenal match in recent memory. You did it.

      This was just not a Premier League performance on any level and in any position. The defending was beyond comical or criminal. It just wasn’t there.

      Xhaka did his best Mustafi, going in studs up with both feet flying for a spectacularly well-deserved red card.The silver lining is that I don’t have to see his face for the next few matches, assuming I have the stomach to watch.

      Chambers, Holding, et Al, aren’t even qualified to watch Paolo Maldini on on You Tube let alone earn a salary pretending to Premier League calibre defenders.

      What else is there to say? I’ll leave it to my Venezuelan friend. I call her Chicharita, Little Sweet Pea. She can sling beer as well as she can talk footie with this poor old Arsenal supporter:

      “It is a bad moment for Arsenal, very bad. I think you must suffer in such a moment but keep faith always with your club, yes?”

      So Chicarita, so. Uno cerveza aqi pot favor. And keep them coming…

  3. First, this is a great piece of writing. If I’m going to be miserable as an Arsenal supporter, it’s at least nice to occasionally read something as well-crafted as the first half of this. I haven’t even seen the movie, but I get it. Well done.

    Second, I agree completely and have been saying for YEARS that this club is an amateur shit on the “management” side (all the business decisions, all the “business of football” decisions, all the hiring decisions (which are mostly versions of cronyism)).

    Third, some nitpicks. Our owners are idiots and have self-declared that they lack ambition to win a championship (cf, Stan at MIT years ago). But they have put a ton of money into this failing project. Perhaps things have shifted in the last 24 hours, but as of 24 hours ago, we were the highest net spenders in Europe… that makes us the highest net spenders in professional football in the entire world! You can criticize a lot about the ownership (principally their stated lack of ambition, their inability to hire effectively and their tolerance of incompetence)… but the facts do not support the notion that they don’t spend.

    That’s really what is so shocking about this club. We just spent 50M on Ben White. Maybe he’ll come good. Before that we spent 30M on Saliba. Meanwhile, West Ham just bought Kurt Zouma for 30M. So, a better run club willing to spend 80M could have bought Zouma — a fine, well-established Premier League quality central defender still in his peak for another couple years — and had 50M left to spend on the rest of the squad. The market is clearly a buyers market but the only club that don’t get that are the Arsenal! We’re still paying pre-pandemic prices. Was anyone in for Ben White anywhere near our bid?

    Anyway, thanks for the words of sanity. Hard to keep mine these days.

  4. Things can get worse than this? Oh dear.

    The one thing I wanted most to get your take on was the Xhaka red card. You summed it up well. I didnt know what to think, frankly. In real time, he got nearly all ball. Freeze frame it the second before impact and it looks horrible — like a Bruce Lee flying kick. I didnt really trust myself to see that through a lens that wasnt red tinted. All I want (and it’s a vain wish) is consistency from EPL refs.

    It’s one thing to have the bad luck of calls going against you… it’s another to have clear cut ones like Chambers yesterday and Leno being held by the Brentford player also go against you. I dont think that there’s a conspiracy against us, but the notion has persisted — from Arsene’s time — that Arsenal are a bunch of soft, effete fancy-ball southeners who dont like some good old British beef. At the same time reporters used to count Wenger’s red cards and no one else’s. We’re dirty, and we’re soft. Make it make sense. I believe (without ever being able to prove it, so rip me if you want for saying it) that contradiction lives on. And if you’re a player with “a reputation”, God help you.

    We could reasonably have expected zero points against Chelsea and City. A properly planned approach would have been treating Brentford like a cup final. That is where the real damage lies, imo. I wonder now if we watched any tape of how they play. We played as if we didn’t. Bottom after 3 games, but we’re going to revert to our mean. But the question is, what is that mean?

    Look, I try not to overreact, and to get some perspective. Leaving aside the 8-2 of 2011, we’ve been having terrible game days against big teams for five years now. The 6-1 against Chelsea was a bad, bad game, and Arsene was manager. But in those games we actually scored. We never looked like doing so yesterday, and that is what is most worrisome. In 5 years — Wenger, Emery, Freddie, Arteta — we haven’t come close to fixing what was ailing the club. It’s not only on Mikel, even though it is clear now that he was the wrong hire.

    The decision to not give Saliba a single minute in Arsenal colours (he played well again this weekend) looks more bone-headed every day. Biggest spend so far, biggest churn… Mikel has no excuses, even if we were to admit that this sort of thing preceded him.

    We beat City and Chelsea early in his tenure, but the more we’ve spent, the more we’ve gone backwards. Be curious to know from the fine minds here why that is.

  5. Great post Tim. The idea of an organized anti-Arsenal conspiracy seems unrealistic to me. Fans look for someone or something to blame problems on. We have been hearing this stuff for about 20 years now.

    I didn’t really expect us to score against Chelsea or Man City. Those were 2 of the best defensive teams in Europe last season and so far in 6 total games between them I think they have only conceded 2 goals. You could argue we should have scored against Brentford but how was that going to happen when we started a front line of Martinelli, Balogun and Pepe. You could have some hope Pepe scores but the other 2 were very unlikely at best. The point is I am not really surprised we haven’t scored yet and I suspect scoring is going to be difficult all season even if we get a new manager. We just don’t have enough players to score the goals we need.

    The thing that really disappointing and the big surprise to me is conceding 9 goals in 3 games. That is completely unacceptable. I don’t expect arteta to turn us into a free flowing high scoring team. He doesn’t have the personnel. However he has spent a lot of money on defensive players and he has to fix the defense. If Arteta does not stop us from leaking goals right after the international break then he may well get sacked.

  6. Re Xhaka, this is pretty good, may be changed by time you read it. I thought it was clear red.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sliding_tackle#Commonly_associated_fouls_and_misconduct

    “ Slide tackles that are made as two-footed lunges except for xhaka at an opponent are generally considered to endanger the safety of an opponent and are hence sanctioned as serious foul play, resulting in a sending-off. This is still the case even if the ball is won cleanly without touching an opponent.[1]“

  7. The lineup was stunningly bad. Two goalkeepers on the bench? Maybe we should have played two goalkeepers at the same time. I have no idea why he didn’t stick with Mari and play AMN at RWB, keep Sambi in midfield and play ESR and Saka narrower in the half channels.

    I will stick with my prediction that Arteta is not getting fired during the season. No way, and what would be the point? There’s no first class replacement available. It would be a shop keeper until the summer anyway. In the meantime, if you tell me that even if we sold Auba and Laca in the next two days (which is think is a strong possibility) I think we have too much talent to be bottom of the league. By end of October we will be 8th or 9th.

    I’m normally a glass half-full type of person, but if we’re objective here – our first game was on the road at a newly promoted and well coached team without our senior strikers and best midfielder and arguably our best young CB (Gabriel). Then we played the European Champions and the Premier League Champions missing key players for both. Should we have been more competitive? Sure. But 0-3 was always a strong possibility when we saw the schedule come out. We’re a team with underperforming senior players, glaring holes (RB the biggest) and loads of potential. It was always going to be a rough season. But any fantasies of Arteta being fired is wasted mental energy.

  8. We’re only 3 matches in but I’m already wondering how short is Arteta’s time?

    Very few managers, if any, recover from this kind of start. And it’s impossible for me to believe that we can put together the kind of run that’s going to protect him from the sack. I just don’t see it.

    Do I want him to go? Sacking a manager in these circumstances rarely brings the required turnaround to keep everyone happy. I don’t think it matters one way or another.

    It’s deep, dark hole we’re in and we’ve never been in Relagation scrap so this is Griswold territory (we’re three games in and I’m writing this – I xan’t believe it).

  9. So Jack… We’re not expected to beat 2 European giants; but we’re also not expected to beat a team that just came out of the Championship? Pick an argument, amigo. Youre trying to have it both ways. Sound like a case for not beating Norwich either.

    Arteta needs an instant and dramatic turnaround. If the bleeding continues and the management don’t replace him, we’d know they’re not serious. We don’t know that there’s no optimal replacement available, and if their conclusion regardless of the state of things is that they cant do better, they’re not doing their job.

    1. What I’m trying to argue is that events and scheduling have not been in our favour thus far. To slag Brentford off as a Championship team is lazy in my opinion – brand new stadium, a good hard working team (I watched them play maybe 7-8 times last year, always liked them), emotions were high after returning to the top division after 75 years away… I would say Brentford might have beaten 15 out of the other 19 teams that day. And then we lost Auba and Laca the day before, creating a scramble. The second goal was a cheat, pure and simple.

      Look, I wish we’d been more competitive in all three games, but I’m saying it’s understandable our record right now. We will beat Norwich. Partey, Gabriel and White will be back for that game. Xhaka will be suspended. We will win, I’m very confident of that.

      1. The argument you make for not beating City and Chelsea is the same for us getting a result at Brentford. Which is it?

        I’ll bet that not even you had a loss to Brentford and an 0-3 start on your bingo card at the start of the season. It all seems like retrospective absolution.

        If you’re saying there are few gimme in pro sport, you’re right. Cept that it doesn’t seem to apply to us. Smaller teams will give City more of a game than we did.

        1. I actually did think we were going to go 0-3 to start the season. I always figured the Brentford game was a landmine we could step on and we did. Is that what we’re judging here? The Brentford game? If we were 1-2 would the “crisis” be less? Nah, there would still be people wailing about how far we’ve fallen.

          We have no entitlement to being a top club. Nottingham Forest, Leeds… lots of clubs have falls from the heights. We’ve had ours. This is where we are, 6th to 12th. My only beef right now is the entertainment value isn’t there, but I’ve given up caring about the record. We aren’t winning anything for a very long time. No doubt Saka will be sold in a year or two, ESR after that, Ben White, Tierney… we’re the new Everton.

          1. ‘Is that what we’re judging here? The Brentford game? If we were 1-2 would the “crisis” be less? Nah, there would still be people wailing about how far we’ve fallen.’

            That’s such a bad faith, nothing argument. Unfortunately you can get away with them on the internet.

          2. In the current scenario, a 3rd bid by Elk for Arsenal maybe 20-25% lower than the last bid might indicate to Enos Kroenke where we stand and get him to react.
            Am sure of that. Has not Kroenke spent 130 million on Arteta’s harebrained signing after the 2nd bid so as to show ambition. It is like training dogs , one has to show an incentive to get results.

  10. Evening Tim and 1 an all from across the pond. Don’t normally engage but read every day. Around 12 seasons ago (maybe more) it was published in a well known UK tabloid (before the season commenced) that at the refs pre season meeting some teams were to awarded more pens, free kicks etc and some teams were to be given more pens, red cards against etc. Now cast your minds back to 2005 that faithful day at OT, we were going for 50 n 0. 1st 15 mins Freddie was taken clean out by Rio
    Red card all day long. But no red and eventaually as game progresses with us in total control Roon falls over the out flaying leg of Sol.. pen. After the match AW calls Riley (ref for that game) a cheat. Riley has since become the head of the ref association. Vendetta? You bet there is. 3 matches in 3 culpable big errors against us. Wake up and smell the coffee guys!

  11. I’m with Jack. This will be our nadir but we’ll finish mid table.
    Still in our dark days phase but we’ve got good players and good youngsters now, we ‘just’ need someone to get them to play better.
    Is Mikel that man? Possibly not but I’d give him the season and plan for a change in the summer if it’s not working by Easter.
    And look on the bright side – we’re a Xhaka free zone for the next 3 games.

  12. To suggest we should clearly have been favorites to beat Brentford just because we are the big team is not realistic when our entire starting line up in that game had a combined total of about 25 league goals in their entire careers. It does not matter how which is the bigger team when that team does not have any players in our line up you would expect to score. That said conceding 2 goals and when you look at our starting line up it was clear a clean sheet was needed. we should have come out no worse then a 0-0 draw

    1. BILL: “our entire starting line up in that game had a combined total of about 25 league goals in their entire careers”

      Brentford’s had zero league goals.

      So this doesnt really work as a metric, Bill.

      We know that sport isn’t linear. That’s the beauty of it. No one is arguing that it is given that we should beat Brentford. But if youre saying ‘strength will win’, you can say the same for us and them. Unfancied teams will always come hard at you. Prepare for it.

      Brentford looked as if they studied us and had a plan to counter our game. We looked surprised by their play. From a planning POV, THAT is the game of the first 3 that we HAD to get something out of. But, as always in sport, it was never going to be a gimme.

  13. If Pepe does not score in the Brentford game then the other 10 players in our starting line up has a total of about 10 combined league goals in their entire careers. You can’t realistically expect to win when that is the best team you have available.

  14. I wouldn’t say there’s a clear refereeing campaign against us, rather the level of reffing in the EPL in general is just embarrassing. I suspect there’s about as much rot in the echelons of the reffing organisation as there is in FIFA or UEFA.

    Haven’t seen much of it lately, but I seem to remember a time when there was very much an “us vs. them” mood at the club, with the players going out and doing their thing and damn the refs. No chatting with them, barely even acknowledging their existence, and certainly no moaning at them or dropping to the ground expecting to get a call that was never going to come. I always thought we played better and more cohesively when we were pissed at the refs.

    Of course, that could just be selective memory and wishful thinking. Heaven knows, anything that would unite this lot would be welcome right now.

  15. Folks, it’s not just being at the bottom of the table. It’s how. I am not seeing anyone on this team being able to justify earning a wage right now, from Sead Kolasinac to the board including of course, Arterta.
    We. Are. Not. Playing. Premier League Football.

  16. Devlin from yesterdays comment section regarding the effectiveness of Wengerball.

    I agree with you about balance and the differential between goals scored and goals conceded (goal differential) is the critical factor in determining a teams success. The problem is you must not have looked at the actual numbers if you are trying to suggest that Wengerball was an effective during the last in the post invincible years. Every season the teams we were competing with outscored us and conceded fewer goals. Fergie’s ManU teams did that every season between 2005 until he retired. Mourinho’s Chelsea teams conceded far fewer goals then we did but even they outscored us is a couple of seasons despite Mourinho’s defensive minded ethos. In Arsene’s last 3 years Spurs had better goal differential then we did. Leicester outscored us and conceded fewer in 15/16. We have a large sample size of data and its clear that Wengerball was not that well balanced and its effectiveness was not what most believe when you look at the real numbers. That is the problem with analysis that ignores the actual results and is based on our predetermined biases and our own personal subjective eyeball test.

    1. Well Bill, the point your were asking about was the number of goals scored being “by far the most important single measure of how you judge the effectiveness of a teams attack”, and on that front I guess you see that it is about goal differential.

      on Wengerball though, I would like you to understand that I do not hold up Wengerball as the end-all-be-all of football philosophies, or the most effective football ever with no flaws. This actually applies to any type of football.

      Usually when we speak of great tactics and great sides, we speak over a particular period and not in terms of forever. And even within those periods of greatness, there will be some other teams who will compete. Its fine to know that in the latter years of Wengerball’s implementation, it fell off in terms of goals scored and goals conceded, but ignoring the first half is as equally biased as ignoring the second half.

      But close to a decade of being effective should not be ignored just because the second decade was not as good and other sides took over. That’s football in a nutshell. Brazil jinga in the 60’s, Netherlands total football in the 70’s. Even Catenaccio failed to catch on in its first few decades (while still winning two World cups) and went on to find its place after the 80’s. Everything has its time, but its greatness should not be diminished because of its bad spells.

      So yes Wengerball wasn’t as effective in the second decade of Wenger’s tenure, but can you name me a single philosophy that can be attributed to a single individual not named Sacchi, Cruyff or Bielsa, that has even had more than a three year run?

      Your expectations on Arsene’s tactical nous and Wengerball are unrealistic Bill. Its not subjective to call it “almost genius”, because looking around at football, its a very rare thing to encounter, even with its failures.

  17. I agree with Fox in the Box and Jack Action. I think we will be a mid table, probably around 8th place by the end of the season. I said the same thing last season when we were struggling around 15th place in October/November. However finishing in the upper half of the table depends on fixing the defense.

  18. It’s one thing to say this is going to be a slog of a season and a rebuild, quite another to rationalise away 3 performances and results like that. That we ‘knew’ we weren’t going to win against Chelsea or City is not something that should count in favour of the management. Why did we know? A new team in the PL wouldn’t have beaten 15 teams just because they were playing at home in a new stadium. They didn’t just win, they outplayed us. Methodically so.

    I will maintain that the reason we are here is because it became popular consensus that we needed to tear everything up and start again post Wenger. We really really didn’t. The famous back 4 were 12th one season. Then we got Dennis Bergkamp and rose to 5th. We’re not getting any player of Bergkamp’s caliber. We will be 12th. (I had us at 10th at the start of the season)

    1. No-one will ever get a player of Bergkamp’s calibre ever again. Nor any one like the big names of the Invincibles. To think these same colours play like they do now and love like we’ve got the opening of this campaign. Those 2-3 years were the most glorious of the Premier League era. A curse and a gift. They are a contributing factor to the neurotic character of Arsenal fans today, as embodied by yours truly.

      1. I hear you. That was a golden age. I’m not expecting us to win like that. I want us to try.

        We had Ozil and we pretended he was beneath us. We decided to bin players who showed us loyalty. Ramsey, Koscielny, even Monreal and Cazorla. Whatever their limitations and costs, we purposely destroyed that team and now we, officially, blame them for what ails us today.

        A rookie manager walked in and never said we. He said there’s me and there’s you and you need to match my standards. I think the team has obliged.

        1. That is hitting the nail on it’s head! A rookie came in and told us we need to shape up. We were so desperate that we thought maybe he will be our messiah. He said all the right things. The club pulled out his old interview to bolster his credentials as an attacking Wenger 2.0. But the football being played is so muddled that nobody is talking about the real human cost to the club since the new management and manager have taken over. Employees fired, loads of good players frozen out, scouting department demolished. Real people lost jobs while owners spent insane amount of money on mediocrity and cronies. Wengerball and Wenger ethos are truly dead. No wonder he hasn’t come back to the club. The best protest fans can do is boycott home games.

  19. Griswold post was pure genius. Thanks Tim. It was miserable watching. Barely bothered with the 2nd half. I too had low expectations lowered.

    I still think Arteta deserves some sympathy for the injuries and schedule conspiring against him to start the season. Few teams beat the PL and CL Champs with 4-6 missing starters. Then going down to 10 men down 2-0.

    But I can never excuse starting Kolasinac and Cedric in the same match. Under any circumstances. And making Xhaka lone dm. Just unfathomable. It’s possible we lose badly to City no matter our lineup, but we know neither wingback is PL material. At least Bellerin or AMN would have a chance to make us presentable.

    Some combination of hubris, stubbornness, and inexperience has taken Arteta to the point of no return.

    And ‘playing the kids’ when your team is getting battered constantly might end up hurting them in the long run. For their sake alone we should have a short leash on our manager.

  20. Yet another great article Tim. Ref your last paragraph, my non Arsenal supporting friends are already saying the players heads aren’t on the pitch.

    I wanted Arteta out last season, but accepted the club’s decision (what choice do I have?!) and said I would stay silent and support until end September, which also coincides with our match vs the Spuds. It’s been hard these three matches and I’m not anticipating it will get any easier.

    The only thing about my expectations that has changed is that Edu will likely also be receiving his brown envelope before the end of the season too.

  21. Nice read!

    Whenever there’s a change to rules (in any sport) it’s on the coaches to exploit them. Looks to me like the refereeing threshold increase i s being exploited by everyone except Arsenal. I guarantee Frank and Guardiola coached their players to push it a little bit more to test where the new boundaries are. It’s just poor coaching that we haven’t done the same.

    I was looking for a word to describe that performance – WRETCHED! In my 30+ years watching Arsenal I’ve never seen so little fight, desire, ability. It was a horrendous mismatch and no more than a light workout for City. If we’re a serious club the manager is fired already.

    We have a top 6 squad but a bottom 3 manager. If we’re Spuds we’re having a great time. They haven’t spent much, have been missing key players and got their fifth choice manager. But he actually knows how to set up a side and play to their strengths. So does Moyes, Potter….. frankly everyone else in the league.

    If things don’t improve soon I don’t think Arteta gets the season. We have absent owners but that doesn’t make them stupid. When you see just about every media outlet and pundit saying we’re clueless and a joke of a club, when fans can be seen leaving the stadium during the game… it’s impossible to ignore. Get rid of this manager and immediately the gloom will lift and our prospects will improve. Here’s hoping.

  22. i’ve spoken ad nauseam about the importance of leadership on the pitch, primarily in tough games. the young guys need that experienced guy to win tough games and every game in the premier league is tough. it’s why you can’t win with youngsters. i often refer to the ’95 ajax team that won the champions league; a team choked with what became household names. however, if you take frank rijkaard out of that team, there’s no way in a million years that they beat milan. he provided the necessary leadership against that tough opponent.

    this brings me to xhaka. he was supposed to be the leader of that team on saturday. when he first arrived to arsenal, he spoke of the english game suiting him more than the german game. for me, that was a red card for me, as i knew he was talking about his history of being sent off in the bundesliga. he came to learn that a red card is a red card regardless of the league.

    with that, i agree with tim that the decision to issue a straight red card was harsh as xhaka did win the ball and pull out of the challenge. however, when you’re already on a yellow, that’s a bad challenge. he’s got to deal with pressure of tough games better than that. during the euros this summer, i watched switzerland have their 1-goal lead totally wiped by a rampant french team early in the second half. xhaka then got a cynical yellow card, born of frustration, but no one talks about that. they talk about how switzerland were able to score two late goals and beat france in a shootout. however, the xhaka yellow card meant that he was suspended for the next game. the swiss team missed him and they were eliminated in the next round.

    xhaka got that yellow because he failed to handle a moment in a tough game well. he didn’t believe they were going to win and the same happened on saturday. that’s not the mentality of a champion. when he got that yellow against france, i believed they would come back as switzerland and france ALWAYS end regular time in a draw. like i said, he lacks the mentality of a true champion. he needs a mental health coach.

    1. really good point about the yellow for Switzerland, I remember that card now and it was just a stupid foul as well.

      I also have a problem with Arteta patting him on the butt on the way to the showers. I know Arteta felt like the card was underserved but the tackle itself was wild and he was out of control and I feel like Xhaka really let the team down. For the coach to praise him was strange to me.

  23. The stat line in the By The Numbers post over on Arseblog makes for horrific reading. It’s far worse than the infamous 8-2 loss to United.
    I had been a Xhaka defender over the years. He was never a world beater, but he was decent. But this tendency to lose it and commit rash challenges is just as bad as the Mustafi mistakes. He had a couple of iffy challenges at the end of the Chelsea match too. We should have let him go even at a cut rate price.
    But that’s only a piece of the much bigger issue. Again, I used to try to defend Arteta, but that’s pretty hard to do now. It not only looks like he and Edu have transfer issues, they also don’t know who to select, and they don’t appear to know how to coach/inspire either. Chambers and Holding aren’t world class, but both seem to have gotten worse in the last year.
    The RB situation needs to get sorted. Any one of Bellerin, AMN or Chambers is better than Soares. Pick one and stick with it.
    And a backup CDM needs to be settled, preferably not Xhaka or Elneny. Even assuming Partey gets healthy, he’s gone during during the Africa tournament, and we’re back to the City situation.

    With Gabriel, White and Partey back, the team will need to look A LOT better. Or I will definitely be in the Arteta and Edu out camp.

  24. Most coaches start by setting up something to get a decent defending on place. Not great but something. Start by keeping the sheet clean. They can still be shit (Unai has proven that extensively) but some burp might get them a result that would be too far away if they were trailing in a match.
    Mikel has been unable to set up a something. WHatever it is, something that all players can get and use to get through games. He tries to go full Pep or full Arsene and plants a bomb in the handbrake… and at the same time, it often feels like players are not allowed to do something out-of-script. End result? The first Headless Chickens ballet.

    Edu is so out of depth, so poorly surrounded, like a nice kid with bad friends (Kia et al.), and those friendships and an unexperienced coach is all we have to lead this football club. They are making Levy look good!

    I don’t know. I feel like I was deprived of something I once liked to experience. There’s nothing to be interested about, no expectation about the possible outcome, there’s nothing. A bunch of kids being bullied all over the pitch (not kicked out as before, just bullied), a vice captain playing macho and a captain a bit too nice for his own sake.

  25. Hilarious analogy Tim. I recently watched that film and it has stood the test of time as well as any cheesy 90’s (80’s???) family comedy ever could.

    But what about the ending? In the end of the movie, Clark gets his boss to see what a jerk he’s been and persuades him to hand out bonuses and in the everyone is happy after all. I still have hope for that because a) I’m an utterly masochistic and b) it’s not in me to give up on stuff I believe in.

    Also, can I just mention: Arsenal played AWESOME football for the first 5 minutes (tongue in cheek)

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