Arsenal 2021/22 stats, August 2021

67 comments

1. I guess this what people mean when they describe Arteta as “generational”?

2. Number of players asking to leave the club on Instagram today – 1 (latest count) 🙂

3. August 2018

   Unai Emery’s first encounter of English football and with a team that he had just had his first pre-season with. This was also a world cup year, where many players were not available for the pre-season.

   First game: Arsenal 0 – 2 Manchester City
   This is a game against a City side that has steamrolled the league and only lost one game all season. Arsenal though played reasonably well and Guendouzi gave a very good account for himself.

   Second game: Chelsea 3 – 2 Arsenal
   A game we really should have won but didn’t put away our chances in. We dominated, created and didn’t finish Chelsea off. Our right side was monstrous that day where the combination of Bellerin and Mkhi caused so much trouble for Chelsea. But alas, our defending let us down due to silly play (Mustafi and Sokratis started).

   Third game: Arsenal 3 – 1 West Ham
   Solid, dominant, creative and downright tenacious. West Ham took the lead, but Unai’s two month old side had it in them, tactically and technically, to take the game back and put their stamp on the game. They did and won, which lead to a very memorable run for the side in his first 6 months.

   my outlook? I was skeptical because of the way we played. But what I will not do is argue with a manager who gets results because that is the ultimate aim of football. Good performances can prolong the results and make consistency easier, but Emery’s game-by-game style of football was winning.

   then now we have this. I mean your stats don’t lie Tim, this is a very bad coaching job. Emery, with the same players and some worse, did much better with what he had, and he wasn’t even that good at Arsenal. In act, he was bad. But a side that spent over 300 million in the last 4 season and yet doesn’t even have a goal of the month contender?

   Emery’s side was horrible when he left. So here is a question, what’s worse than horrible?

   1. “So here is a question, what’s worse than horrible?”

      Arsenal 2021

      1. Yabut….

         … trust the process 😂

   2. I have lately come to the idea that results and “the way we play” i.e. attractive and entertaining football are not exclusive pursuits necessarily. How many very good teams play consistently unattractive football and just pound out results? I’d suggest it’s very few. Even Atletico, there’s a beauty to their defense.

      Emery’s football was hard to watch and eventually that caught up to him in the results and player’s attitudes. It happens to Mourinho now all the time – he gets results for a while, but the style of play demoralizes players. There are no players on Leeds complaining about Bielsa or the incredible physical demands he’s making when they go on a losing streak because they are all enjoying the brand of football they’re playing. They aren’t tearing up trees in the standings, but few people are complaining because it’s fun to watch.

      The game against West Brom says to me that with the right set-up, the right line-up, the boys do know how to play entertaining football. I wish Arteta just let the boys play and entertain us. The results will follow. I read those stats and what jumps out to me is we need more individual improvement and work (for example, simply winning tackles), and less tactical work. The first goal on Saturday – has no one told Chambers that as CB, your job is to get a body on the attacker, not try and out jump him for the cross? Chiellini or Bonucci would have had their hip into Gundogan before the cross had even been delivered. That kind of individualized coaching is needed now.

      1. Too bad we don’t play West Brom’s second string every week

         1. Championship team West Brom’s 3rd string.

            If other teams want to grant us all the space in the world to operate and plenty of unpressured time on the ball, I’m sure we will do well in the league this year. Sadly, most teams will play their best players and are well aware that Arsenal can’t handle pressure.

            1. WBA line up was their third string for sure,
               The club is worth $90m and their league cup line up vs Arsenal was worth under $10m (transfermarkt).

               That’s by far the weakest opposition Arsenal have faced in a competitive game under Arteta.
               A definition of a throw away game for them if I ever saw one.

      2. Tackles are not just about individual drive and work. Arteta’s team has been anti-tackle now for 18 months. He is literally telling them not to tackle. That was how he “improved” Xhaka, by telling him to only tackle when he’s absolutely certain or only when completely necessary. And Xhaka still doesn’t listen 100%.

         1. He told him not to tackle? That must be why he did his kung fu thing. He was out of practice.

            1. yes, if you look at Xhaka’s tackles numbers over the years there was a massive dip when Arteta took over but it’s back up again now and Arteta actually has him playing the best defense of his life.

               But in general, Arsenal don’t play any form of proactive defending like tackles, interceptions, etc. under Arteta.

               Currently Arsenal are 2nd to last in tackles and 14th in interceptions. In 2017/18 Arsenal were 11th in Tackles and 12th in interceptions. In 2018/19 we were 15th in tackles, 13th in INT.

               The tackles numbers are especially weird, I think Arteta just doesn’t like them.

         2. Just curious, cos I know you’ve documented what you are saying below about tackle and interception aversion under Arteta; could you give the numbers for 19-20 and 20-21 if you have time?

4. “Trust the process”

5. We haven’t had great luck with injuries or COVID. And I’ve been pleased with a couple of the recent purchases, Lokonga and Tavares look like exactly the sort of relatively cheap, young, quality players we should be trying to get.
   But beyond that, this is a mess. Constant and inexplicable lineup changes, players looking clueless, poor decisions like whatever is going on with Saliba and the Martinex/Leno fiasco, overpaying(White). It’s getting very hard to look past Arteta and Edu being a big mistake.

   Someone needs to tell the Kroenke’s that tanking in the PL doesn’t get us the chance to draft Haaland first next summer.

   1. ‘Someone needs to tell the Kroenke’s that tanking in the PL doesn’t get us the chance to draft Haaland first next summer.’

      ROFL! Oh those wacky Kroenkes!

6. I retract my retraction of the post after Brentford in which I said it looks like Arteta has lost the team, especially the more senior players. He has lost them. I don’t think the return of the other players will have that much impact, or staying power.

   Can’t wait for a new manager to have a run with the young talent we have amassed. And hey, Willian’s gone! There are some big positives for the club, right? RIGHT? Someone throw me a bone here!

   1. I wish I could provide a bone. But I’m with you…it looks to me like he’s lost a lot of the team based on that performance against City. And the AMN post today.

   2. Got that one wrong. Thought no way he’s leaving with two years left on 6 figures a week. The reports Im seeing are that he’s leaving money on the table. We paid Mesut his money right to the end of his contract, even through the last six months, at Fener. Players still get paid after leaving a club, if they are contracted.

      Bizarre deal. As firing-worthy as anything that Raul has done. Busy two days.

      Through balls! Touches in the opposition’s final third! Interceptions! I dont know whether to smile or cry.

      Bottom line, our defending is bad. We can see that. Had no idea that the statistical evidence would be this damning. There must be a skew oping to the quality of the opposition, but man, it’s still terrible

      1. This still comes down to the Kroenkes being unwilling/unable to put in place a functional management team, especially Director of Football. No vision, no plan, no results.

         Apparently, they are now leaking their dissatisfaction with Edu to throw him under the bus. Wonder if Arteta’s selection of Cedric and Sead some sort of masochistic way of saying, “Here’s what happens when you give me these players!”

         Maybe Edu is the one that’s out after this window…

7. Offensive:
   20 – Position on the League table
   0 – Wins
   0 – Draws
   3 – Losses
   0 – Goals for
   9 – Goals against
   0 – Big Chances for

   —————

   These numbers are indeed extremely offensive

8. ON the matter of not tacking, the theory propogated by Untold Arsenal is that it was a deliberate move to cut down on the number of fouls given and yellow cards.

   It seemed to work last season.

   However cutting down on tackling does seem to give more space and time to attackers, which results in more shots by them and less by us.

9. This is a strangely satisfying article – perhaps because its exact inversion is where we hoped we’d be after Wenger left… wheeee!

   1. I know right!

      If you turn your phone upside down we’re top of the league!!!

10. Hey Tim, some other numbers I just came across, for the past 4 seasons (starting 2018/19 and including this one)

    21 — Players signed by Arsenal in the past 4 seasons
    10 — Players not signed by Arteta in the period
    4 — Of the 10, non-Arteta signees, players he’d deemed not good enough
    £287m — Cost of non-Arteta signees (Pepe, Saliba and Tierney cost £125m)
    £85m — Cost of non-Arteta signees (in this period only) that he’s deemed not good enough

    11 — Players signed by Mikel Arteta in 2 summer and 1 winter TWs
    3 — Players loaned-in by Arteta (Ceballos etc)
    £212m — Cost of players bought by Arteta (not including loan fees)

    Rounded and missing a few decimal points, but the takeaways:
    — Emery spent £138m two summers ago (£125m on 3), but it wasnt enough to keep him in the job. Jack says the club have invested too much in Arteta to move him, but should consider this. Mikel is close to that level. One purchase can take him over.

    — The problem with the Kroenkes clearly isn’t money for transfers (source is another issue), as we’ve made £500m in transfers in 4 seasons.

    — That level of churn is destabilising. You’re not building… youre destroying. Edu might be a bigger problem than Arteta here, because you simply dont discard players at that rate and expect stability.

    Arteta treats players like a socialite treats expensive stuff that was impulse purchased at sales.

    1. 👆🏽This is a club that doesn’t know what it’s doing. Trust the process?

       Mikel’s defenders say that he doesn’t have “his players” yet. He’s purchased 11 in a few months short of 2 years.

       1. In my opinion they are scrambling because till April they were making plans to use the cash and prestige from the Super League. They wanted players out by hook or by crook so they could splurge. Now they’re having to rework it almost on the go. So you still get big money deals like Ben White, but you have this new ’21-23 y/o’ transfers being projected as a plan in and of itself. It buys them time, in terms of the narrative anyway. Meanwhile they still don’t know who they can get and whom they need to keep, while some players are now unhappy at being ignored/mismanaged/given false hope. Hence chaos.

    2. Excellent Claude. He has no excuses left.

11. One of Arteta’s faults is that he quickly discards players. Bellerin, Gabriel, Willian and many more fell out of favour not to be seen for long periods (or again).

    Perversely the opposite is also true in terms of the Lazarus-like resurrection of Kolasinac.

    We thought we were hiring a next-gen coach to improve the players we have not keeping buying new players to fall out with.

12. Claudeivan

    What you say is powerful and very persuasive.

    However were you to say that on another blog it would be welcomed with a torrent of abuse and criticism.

    It seems that to many despite his obvious faults as highlighted by you and Tim and others to actually voice these concerns and to criticise arteta is being disloyal to the club and wrong in principle.

    The myopic attitude of so many otherwise intelligent people is symptomatic, in my view, of a refusal to see and understand reality and fueled by a genuine fear of the repercussions of removing another manager.

    It seems they would prefer further destruction rather than the ignominy of removing arteta from a post that he is clearly, in my view, unsuited and unqualified.

    Just as with Emery the longer this continues the greater the damage.

    The irony is that when arteta took over and tried to play the wenger game with ozil at the hub he was successful. When the next season he decided to do his own thing it was downhill all the way.

13. Willian’s agent:

    “Arteta make several presentations to Willian and made it clear he would be the focus point of how he would build the team around him.”

    “I think Willian did the right thing, he went for the project and the project wasn’t there.”

    “Unfortunately, I’d have to say what player has moved to Arsenal that has not been a disaster in the last couple of years?”.

    Fvcking priceless. Least he’s telling it like it is.

14. ‘Offensive’…

    Ha ha so true 🙂

15. Tim: Great post.

    The stats look utterly dismal. Part of that can be explained by the schedule. We played the 2 of the best teams in all of Europe who were last seasons champions league finalists and Chelsea has certainly improved their squad with the addition of Lukaku. However, To me the thing that is truly distressing and concerning is 9 goals conceded in 3 games. If that does not get fixed immediately and results turned around quickly then Arteta will get sacked. It was a dismal preseason in terms of results. However, Every season has runs of good form and bad form. Just like last season I still believe we are a top half of the table team and by the end of the season we will finish somewhere around 8th place but that depends on getting the defense back on track and keeping some clean sheets.

16. for those who wanted arteta to be the arsenal manager before he got the job, may i ask why?

    who among this group believes arteta has what it takes to make arsenal a championship team again?

    1. Oh I believe he could take us straight to The Championship. Just not the PL championship.

    2. I supported both Emery’s and his appointment. Emery because I thought Arteta wasn’t ready (the buzz began then) and said right here that he needed to show his chops at a smaller club first.

       But when Emery was removed, I enthusiastically got on board the Arteta train. The Arsenal DNA thing, plus I really liked him as a player and captain (and I still do — he was a terrific servant for us in those roles).

       I’ll leave it guys like you and Tim who are great on tactics to pick apart his shortcomings there. But he has shown me that he is a poor manager of professional sportsmen. It started with his clear bullshitting over Ozil, to his mealy-mouthedness over the likes of Saliba. And more than those two… much more. Bizarre staffing decisions. Too much freezing people out

       He has not risen to the challenge of COACHING. You made a great point about defenders sometime back…defending is their first job, and everything else is gravy. Guess which and which on-loan players starred for Marseilles last weekend, and are in the Ligue 1 team of the week?
       The hothead looks unrecognisable as an attack-minded midfielder. Coaching. Role grooming.

       The defender Wenger raves about looked the player we knew he was. Managerial confidence.
       Coaching. Man-management. The regime he left at City has the means of buying its way to perfection. Arsenal doesn’t. Sometimes you have to round out young players with rough edges

       Kia Joorabchian said on UK radio today that Arteta hustled Willian hard, advocating a 3 year contract over the 2 year one that Chelsea was offering. Now Kia is an odious character and Edu’s good mate. As we say in the Caribbean… if he tells you to walk, run like hell. But Willian was Mikel telling/showing us that he didnt need Ozil. How did that go? And let;’s not forget Runnarsson.

       I think Shard said it previously (or it could have been you). If Mikel doesnt like you personally, you’re not getting a shot.

       Firing Mikel will be painful, but it’s got to be done sooner rather than later. He’s not that good a coach, the number of players he cant work with should give anyone pause, and he has us playing uglyball. Uglyball is fine when you’re winning. If Chelsea can call time on Lampard, we can do the same on our manager.

    3. I wanted Arteta to get the job because I felt then, as I do now, that the first thing the club needed was a return to the values that defined us. Emery, but more specifically Raul, were consciously destroying those. It is also for the same reason I didn’t want Freddie to be removed. But when Arteta came I was happy. He has proven to be a disaster. Forget about the football and the coaching, which, speaks for itself. I have lost respect for the man. We’re as far away as can be from the Wenger/Arsenal class I expect as a bare minimum.

       I am certain that if we stick by the 4 or 5 conditions Gazidis laid out for Emery, we’d be fine even with an inexperienced coach. That is, a coach who was willing to be humble and learn and not pretend he was the answer to all our prayers.

       You mean win the PL? Not a chance. If Arteta stays the whole season I think we won’t match the 61 point haul of last season.

    4. I think there’s gonna be a gunfight soon. Too much underperforming, lots of money spent and so far I’d say fans have been sympathetic. That won’t last.

       I never cared for Arteta and I think I was the first here to raise concerns. We didn’t seem to get a new manager bounce, his line ups and game plan seemed to change from week to week. Plus there was an instinctive thing that he seemed too hard nosed. I recall some folk thought I was being impatient at the time (que sera).

       I said before he was hired that it would only work if 1) he brought Pep’s special sauce (appears such a thing doesn’t exist) and 2) he’d need strong boss and mentoring.

       If you’re going to be a leader in any field the most important requirement is to get people to follow you. That’s the big fail. I just don’t think Arteta is cut out for football management. May be he’d be better as a DoF, who knows?

17. I am very happy to support the club.

    What I am not happy is to support a person who I can see with my eyes who is destroying the club and what it stands (or now after his efforts, stood) for.

    If he remains as manager, not only will be get no where near the 61 points of last season, but will be flirting with relegation.

    If I am wrong, then wonderful. But if I am not the picking up of the pieces left by Arteta will be a long and painful.

18. Agree with the rest of you. He won’t be able to rescue the season.

    The new rumor about Arteta and Edu floating around is interesting to me. If Edu is sacked and Arteta stays, be ready for the “Edu didn’t get the players we needed” narrative. It will be that Arteta wanted younger players and Edu gave him Willian and Luiz. That Arteta had to go to the board to get Partey last minute. That Runarsson was Edu’s fault. It buys Arteta a little time to salvage the next month or two with “his players.” But that will be about it.

    But if you look at the squad vs. where we were when Arteta/Edu started, they’ve presided over a big clear out. Ozil, Sokratis, Luiz, Mustafi, Torreira, Guendouzi, Willock, Bellerin. It was never going to be easy or painless. It was never a 1 or 2 window thing.

    If we get a real DOF and a new manager, I think there’s hope. We’ve gone with youth. Some may be excellent. Some will not cut it. Some will be ok. A new regime can build around the core we have. If we don’t deal with the black hole of inexperience and vision at DOF we will be in an extended cycle of rebuilds.

19. So the transfer window is over…we have yet another new defender, lol. I know he’s also supposed to be able to play RB, he’s young…and he’s over 6 ft in height. Is this the harbinger of a back 3 going forward?
    P.S. Jeez! There was a part of me really wishing the club would take a chance on Camavinga!

20. Camavinga wouldn’t have taken a chance on Arsenal, not with RM, PSG, and United sniffing around.
    Players talk. He would’ve known what the likes of Guen and Saliba think of Arsenal under Arteta.

    As long as Arteta stays Arsenal’s chances to sign the next hot French prospect are practically zero.

    1. This is an understated aspect of our actions. Young French players are not going to jump at the chance of joining the club now, perhaps even beyond Arteta. That Wenger/Henry juice was reaching expiry date soon anyway. We’ll now have a new reputation.

       Players would also have noted how we treated Ramsey, Kos and Ozil. How we deal with players like Bellerin and AMN. We just made things a lot more expensive for us I would think, because money is maybe the only reason they’d move to us ahead of other clubs. The prestige is almost all gone. The style of play associated with us has been completely obliterated. We openly project we no longer care about the players’ well being beyond their utility. Buying 21-23 y/o from smaller clubs may just be about all we can realistically achieve rather than a solid plan.

21. I see we’ve bought a Japanese right back. That should boost replica kit sales in the Far East! I remember the last Japanese player we bought, Inamoto. I don’t recall him getting on the pitch, but he must have done I suppose. I’m probably one of the few people who can actually say they saw him. Back at the old stadium, players who weren’t playing used to sit in a row in East Stand Upper, just behind me. I heard that the other players called him “T-shirt”, presumably because they thought he’d been hired to boost sales. Let’s hope Tomiyasu doesn’t go the same way.

    1. Those racist days are over. You think any one calls Son Heung Min T-shirt?

       1. You don’t have to go very far to find racism very much alive and well. For reference check social media everywhere. Twitter, Facebook, reddit. Search a thread on Tomiyasu, you’ll find it. Surprising? No. In fact as utterly predictable as the lazily regurgitated opinion that follows all Asian players around: “only signed for shirt sales”

          This guys ethnicity and cultural background isn’t really worth more than passing interest unless we’re here to exchange superficialities, “moving air” as the French might term it.

          Of much more interest is what his profile tells us about how Arteta intends to use him. Reports are that Aarons and Lamptey were passed over for their lack of aerial prowess.
          If, as is speculated, Arteta wants to run a system that pivots between a back 3 and a back 4 a tall, defensive minded hybrid RB/CB starts to make a lot more sense.

          a. It mitigates your headline £50m CBs weakness in the air
          b. It explains some of the reluctance to use either AMN or Cedric
          c. It allows us to leverage the things Tierney or Tavares do best

          I suspect Chambers was the prototype hybrid solution we hoped would step up and save us a transfer. Gamedays 1-3 gave us an answer pretty emphatically.

          Problem is, does Arteta really have the luxury of bedding in a newish system 3 games into a new season with 3 dire performances and 0 points under his belt? We’re 20 months into his tenure and still unsure he can coach a philosophy and consistent way of playing. And that to me is as damning as any of the more emotive man-management or decision making blunders.

          1. It’s not just Asian players. When players like Ronaldo and Messi change hands, I would imagine “shirt sales” are pretty much near the top of the agenda. Even Mesut Ozil. It’s about money at the end of the day. Ethnicity really doesn’t come into it.

       2. I’ve no idea what they call him, either to his face or behind his back. Bullying still exists in football clubs.

          1. There’s a “pecking order” in most dressing rooms at most clubs. Someone like Son will be pretty near the top of his, by virtue of the fact that he is a very talented footballer and wins games for the team. No one is going to give him a hard time.

             When a new player comes to a club, the rest of the squad are quick to decide whether the new guy is any good or not. If it’s decided that he is not, then they end up at the other end of the scale and their lives can often be made quite miserable. This is particularly the case, if it’s discovered that they are on good wages. I’d like to think footballers on the whole are less racist than they used to be, but my guess is they are not above making some pretty cutting remarks, which can refer to anything they fancy.

             Imoto came to the club on the wave of huge interest from the Japanese media, who followed his every movement. The Arsenal dressing room in those days was a tough school. They would have noticed this.

             Arsenal, like most other clubs, often measure up a players marketing potential when they look to make a deal to sign someone. Image rights. That’s business for you.

    2. The positive feedback on the lad is almost universal. Looks like we got a good player, and an upgrade on everything we have in the position.

       Don’t let our justified cynicism make it so that we can’t even give credit where due.

       The problem of course is an overstock in the position. Hector’s gone but we have Cedric, Chambers, AMN and even White who can play there. AMN though was subbed on into the midfield (gainst City, I think)

       1. I think using Tomi, White and Gabriel as 3 CBs with Tierney and AMN as wing backs might be worth a shot. I feel that is the only way this team can have some solidity.

    3. The last Japanese player we bought was Takuma Asano. Yeah I don’t think he got on the pitch for us in an official game. Was injured quite a bit though.

       1. Oh he wasn’t injured. He was just on loan to the 2nd division in Germany. Ryo Miyaichi was the one who struggled with injuries. Not sure if he ever played for us either.

       2. Asano. Of course! I’d forgotten him. He rose without trace.

    4. i watched a youtube video on him. while i know these videos are skewed, i like the look of him. he’s got decent height, good speed, and appears both technically sound and strong in the air. more importantly, he’s quick and can defend 1v1. my rough guesstimate, if koscielny and van dijk had a baby, he’d be this kid. i know that’ bold for me to say. for my money, he looks better on youtube than ben white. the only question i have is his mentality. we’ll see.

       1. Often handy having someone 6ft 2″ covering the far post for crosses. Hector was usually found wanting.

22. At this point, I’d like to see them try Chambers as CDM. I’m not sure he can be worse at that than Elneny or Xhaka. Or use him as a wingback, as his crossing has actually been the best of any player we’ve tried on that side.

    On the Arteta front, I think he and Edu have executed reasonably well in terms of bringing in young players to fit a strategy (less well in terms of getting rid of).
    The problem is that I’m not sure we have very good more senior leaders. And even more so, I’m not sure that Arteta is that good of a coach. Pep seems to think so, but the evidence has seldom been there on the field. The players look disorganized, unsure of tactics, etc. IMO, he doesn’t have very long to prove himself on that front. We need results against the lower half teams, and even if we can’t get consistent results against the better teams, we need to at least look like we know what we’re doing.

    1. … an excellent and concise post.

    2. Chambers is no where near at the level Arsenal need for a midfielder. If he were pressed he would completely crater. And yes, I am aware he played there for Fulham but his passing was 79%, he progressed the ball an astonishingly poor 4 times per game. He was basically bottom 40 percentile in almost all passing stats that season. And his possession stats were actively bad. And his defensive stats were hardly something to write home about.

       Have a look for yourself:

       https://fbref.com/en/players/dc6f5bdd/scout/1889/Calum-Chambers-Scouting-Report

       1. do you think the fact that he was on an awful team may have led to some of those bad numbers? there was a kid there named jean michael seri who many on this forum wanted at arsenal; somehow, because he was short, people thought he could be “a new cazorla”. that season, chambers was moved to midfield in place of seri and i thought he did quite well, considering his circumstances; much like alex song when he was at charlton on loan.

          i think the point slc was making is that, now that the transfer window is closed, he could prove an option at cdm. likewise, what are we going to do with chambers if this new japanese kid comes in and proves clearly better.

23. tom, great point about how arteta’s way has alienated the many young frenchmen who grew up arsenal players. i made that point a few months back; and you’re absolutely right, they talk to each other…and will talk to guendouzi and saliba before considering a move to arsenal. it’s a disgrace but that’s how big of an egoist arteta seems to be.

    1. Hey everyone,

       Been busy, not much time to check in on 7am, but it’s probably better that way for everyone (especially me!). I’m shaken and as shocked by our start to this season as the rest of you. In the short term it’s hard to see cause for optimism for all the reasons that have already been expounded above. The momentum against Arteta is starting to feel like an insurmountable swell, although he still has time to steady the ship. In the next month or so the team can either show that the first few games were an aberration, or it will become increasingly apparent that his players don’t really believe in him anymore and he will get the axe. As you all know, I’m not into piling misery on the head of any manager. I hope none of you will have to do your jobs with as much public scrutiny as he or any other high profile footballer or manager does. Please remember that he is a human being first, and that he loves Arsenal at least as much as you do.

       In the long term, I think he has been a part of building a foundation that will only gain in strength. It takes a special person to invest in the future when your own job is on the line, but that’s exactly what the club hierarchy have done. I respect that. Arsenal has received a lot of grief for buying lots of players who don’t really make the team better right now, and for good reason. What this is though is an investment in the next 5 years, a smart business move. The players they bought will either work out with us, in which case their value will improve and they can either be sold for profit or extended as part of a valued core; else, they will find it hard to find playing time and can be moved on for around the same price that they were bought. A smart business plan is hard to rally people behind and it gives us scant comfort now. But it was sorely needed. Until 2018 it was whatever Wenger wanted, then it was the wild wild West. At least there there IS a plan now. Too little too late perhaps. But football changes quickly.

       1. I appreciate your optimism, doc, I really do. But the outcome for this patient is dicey given the current treatment plan. Also, I think the attending physician’s approach is….unknowable, at least to me. If we don’t pick up League points before the S#$s match this patient will have coded (at least for the season – in football you CAN comeback from the dead).

          1. Agree on the short term prognosis. It’s hard to overcome this. However, the beautiful thing about Arsenal football club is that it is, essentially, immortal!

       2. Doc, admire your optimism but here’s the reality of recent years. If you look at our sales for the past five years on Transfermarkt the big ones (£10M+) were either academy players (Willock, Iwobi) or players bought very young (Walcott, Ox). There are no examples of players bought in their early 20s and sold for profit. It would be quite the turnaround even if we broke even on the current intake.

24. Two years ago, on this day, Matteo Guendouzi was the best player on the pitch that included Son, Kane and Aubameyang, as Arsenal came back from 2 goals down at draw at Tottenham. Less than a year later, Mikel Arteta decided that he’s not good enough for a team that would go on to finish 8th.

    Guendouzi has been selected to the France squad (a team with insane competition), on the basis of his performance in the first 3 games of the season (in which he scored). Saliba didn’t make the senior squad, but he got called up to the U-21s for the first time, and like Guendouzi, he was in the L1 team of the week. Camavinga’s name came up earlier — he’s in too. You bet they talk.

    I simply don’t trust Arteta’s judgement of players’ ability. Not Willian, not Runarsson, not Mari, not Cedric, not Saliba, not Guendouzi, not Holding, not Chambers, not Mavropanos. As I said, he’s decided that £85m worth of talent isnt worth his time. He’s destructive of value. He cant leave soon enough for me.

    Vinai’s comments on the strategy suggest he’s planning to have Mikel there for the long haul, but when push comes to shove, that may not Vinai’s decision to make — even if it turns out that he himself isnt under pressure, which I doubt.

    1. CORRECTION: 2-2 at the Emirates.

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