For the first time in over 25 years, the Arsenal men’s team failed to qualify for European competition. That means this week there was no Arsenal in the Champions League and today there will be no Arsenal in the Europa League or even in the Europa Conference League.
Arteta was asked about this fact this morning during his press conference and he reacted saying that “it hurts” and that it’s a motivating factor for him and the players. Well that’s good.
Sorry if that’s an anodyne response on my part but I noticed that I’m the only one who not only doesn’t care whether Arsenal are in Europe this year, but actually likes it.
Now, to be fair, I have been busy with work this week which has limited the amount of time I would have been able to dedicate to mid-week football. I would normally have watched Atalanta play in the Champions League but missed that one. And I might have tried to catch the replay after work but I’d accidentally heard the score and decided to skip that too. So, maybe if I had watched any of the Champions League I would feel differently but I don’t think so.
It’s not that I don’t care that Arsenal aren’t in Europe because it does matter and it matters for all the reasons that everyone has already written about 10,000 times since I started following Arsenal: the money, the money, and the money. It may seem excessive to list the same thing three times but it is such a critical aspect of modern football that I though it worth repeating.
Oh yeah, for the fans it’s not just about the money: we get those great European nights! And I will personally never forget the time I went to the Emirates and Arsenal played Porto. The Porto fans were raucous so we stood the entire time, and there was a guy in front of me who also farted the entire time. I hope he got a colonoscopy. We won that game and Nicklas Bendtner got a hat-trick. He’s on the hat-trick wall of fame at the Emirates now. Up there with his peers: Thierry Henry and Ian Wright.*
I also remember the time I went to England to watch Arsenal and we played AC Milan. A few days before my flight, we lost 4-0 in the away leg and despite the fact we had no chance of advancing, I went anyway. We scored three goals in the first half and I was so pumped up that at half-time I went to get a beer and put a bet on Robin van Persie scoring a goal in the second half. I got the beer and as soon as I took a sip I remembered that the beer was alcohol free (because they aren’t allowed to serve alcohol in Champions League matches). Then when I got back to my seat, Robin van Persie missed a sitter and Arsenal crashed out. I also had a guy behind me complain the entire time about how he couldn’t see.
I have also been to Munich twice to watch Arsenal get booted out of the Champions League by Bayern Munich. One time was a blast and I really thought we were going to overcome the first-leg deficit but we didn’t. And the other time was a little bit of a damp squib. And after the match, I thought I was smarter than everyone else and decided to go the other direction around the stadium to get to the train and ended up walking on a road by a car park for what seemed like an hour. Whoo boy that was dumb! Oh, and arrogant! “Sometimes he was ok, but a lot of the time he was dumb and arrogant: here lies Tim Todd.” Is there any question why I don’t drink anymore?
That was 2014 and I gave up going to Champions League matches after that. And probably at the right time, if I’m honest because things didn’t get much better for us over the next few years. In fact, our last appearance in the Champions League was a total humiliation: 10-2 over two legs against Bayern.
After that I guess it was slightly better in the Europa League? We lost to Atletico Madrid in the semi-final in Wenger’s last season. Then we lost in the final to Chelsea in Unai’s first season. And then the wheels came all the way off and we lost to Olympiakos in the first knockout round and followed that up with a humiliating defeat to Unai Emery’s Villareal in the semi-final last year. Yeah, that’s right, the guy we hired to win us the Europa League, lost the Europa League while coach for us, then we fired him, and then he went ahead and beat us on the way to… winning the Europa League.
I think I’ve just about had my fill of Arsenal men’s team in European football for a while, thank you very much. So, to be quite honest I haven’t missed Arsenal this week. Not at all. This week with no Arsenal in Europe has been a tremendous relief. Like a fever has broken at the club.
Sorry if that’s weird to you. Maybe you get to go to matches without filling the planet with carbon emissions – I have to fly from Seattle so it doesn’t quite feel right – and you miss the big European nights. I get that – time with your mates, good craic, carnival atmosphere, getting shanked by some angry I-ties, etc.. Maybe you’re getting ribbed by your Spurs mates – I really feel like Arsenal and Spurs fans can’t be friends but I guess it could happen – and it ticks you off. I also get that, though I might be tempted to point out that they are in the third division of UEFA now, which ain’t much to brag about really. Maybe you’re looking forward to better recruitment that European football supposedly brings, along with the money (did I mention the money?). I guess I also get that.
But for me, I just got a week off from worrying about Arsenal and frankly it felt kinda good. It felt good because I think that there’s a part of the club’s neurosis or depression which is amplified by the constant news cycle which surrounds us. Every little thing we do (or even some stuff that’s imagined, like Bernd Leno throwing a strop at training) is reported and agonized over. And not just by Arsenal pods/vlogs/blogs/flogs/chips/dips/chains and whips, I don’t point fingers at anyone out there making a living off this. We are still a big club so unlike Crystal Palace or West Ham, every news story is picked up by the major podcasts too. Arsenal news is like that old Mitchell and Webb skit where they just say “football” 100 times: it’s almost inescapable and most of it is boring and meaningless.
So, a week without a game sort of feels like a little rest and recuperation. We’ve never been particularly good in Europe so this is like we are finally getting the rest we need after a long illness.
That’s not to say that we aren’t sick! We still have night-sweats. I’m getting sick just thinking about Sean Dyche talking about how he’s the last guy on earth who cares about diving and the effect this terrible scourge has on children or how in his day they could leave the grass an inch taller because they didn’t actually pass the ball.
But hey, you know what? I also don’t have to read those news articles. Nor write about them! I don’t even HAVE to write about Arsenal at all this week! I could just start writing some nonsense gibberish (ha ha! start?). I mean, I probably will and you all will talk about it but hey, you never know. Maybe I’ll do some sort of beatnick thing where I write up three different stories and just cut them together randomly.
Let the healing begin!
*Wrighty and Henry are peerless, this is what we call sarcasm.
I was about to comment on your previous post that Im having European football withdrawal symptoms and you post this. Congratulations, Mikel. First time out of Europe in a quarter of a century or so, worst start to a season since 1954… the hits keep coming. I see comments all the time about giving Arteta time, but he’s had oodles of time. Not in Wenger years, obviously, but he’s been given a ton of breaks already. More than he deserves, frankly. And a ton of money. All had to show for it is a barely scraped victor over the worst team in the premier league. Players he rejected are in European competition. Oh the irony.
Trust the process? I don’t. Keep this manager? I’d prefer a more competent one, and one who doesn’t look asif he’s in over his head. I also want us to win every time we play, even when I think the odds are against us. Conundrum.
It seems you are forgetting we absolutely dismantled West Brom’s Under-9s team.
And comprehensively beat Brentford in the behind-closed-doors no pointer game. Ha.
First off, that Porto game was an amazing experience, and I will always have a soft spot for Bendtner for that hat trick. Nasri would later piss us all off, but that goal… Recounting that game always brings a rush of excitement.
My wife and I were also there for our only trip to London to see the Arsenal. We had the good fortune of meeting up briefly with you before the Saturday Burnley game. Bendtner was such a mess that day. Glad to still be here reading your writing 11 years later. Thanks for continuing to share your thoughts with us.
I have the exact same feeling about Europe this year. Sure, it sucks to miss the money but we need a break and some focus. I sure as hell didn’t want to be in that confederation cup or whatever it is. You did a great job of capturing my thoughts on it, which you often do. Probably why I still enjoy your reasoned thinking and good writing. Thanks.
I remember that meeting. Sorry that I didn’t have more time to give you and your wife. You are very nice folks and I feel like I was probably a bit rude.
As for that Nasri goal, I was all the way on the other end of the pitch, plus I was completely obstructed and covered in farts! I never saw it!
Sorry you couldn’t see that goal well. Thankfully, we were in a great position and not covered in farts.
As for the meeting. You weren’t rude at all. It was great to meet you, have a few words, and then you had other people to link up with. And we started heading to the stadium not long after to take it all in. All good. We enjoyed meeting you after reading your work for a while, and continue to follow you today.
Stadium farts and That Mitchell Web Look. You, sir, ARE peerless!
Easy– I’m easy like Sunday morning… ♫♪
Something to enjoy. Simply as possible.
Stepping back from engaging on Arsenal online this season. Just watching it unfold.
Been visiting some of the older Arsenal blog sites. Like I used to when I started following the club early-00s. Conversing about football at the level I enjoy most. Reading some of the long-timers views has its own order and comfort.
One of those– a season ticket holder, whose site I’ve been visiting since forever– has been giving and taking heat the past couple of weeks on his attitudes regarding online fandom. In some circles, divisions become drawn, a line between those attend and those who don’t or can’t This is where I give an abundance of credit to this one old-timer Arsenal supporter. He goes further. Realizing globalization of his beloved club has long passed the point of complaining or even the possibility of local activism holding sway– he’d decided to draw a different line of delineation.
At influencers. Those online who exist to create conflict. For the sake of likes or RTs– or whatever currency is sought. Rather agree with him on this. And his point is well taken– when he says it’s not just Arsenal– but every PL club whose fandom has a segment of online critics– whose sole purpose is the generation of negativity.
He pointed to another blog. One written by a Liverpool fan. The Arsenal blogger made clear it’s not his norm to visit nor engage at other club’s fans sites– but a friend of his had come across this piece– and found it accurate to his own perspective and decided to share it on his own blog.
Having read it– I’ll offer it here:
The Cold World of the Extremely Online Liverpool Fan
The odd existence of the digital football supporter who doesn’t care about football
https://dean-magazine.ghost.io/the-cold-dead-world-of-the-extremely-online-liverpool-fan/
Me? I’m easy. Like Sunday morning.
Not being in Europe isn’t just about money, even equally important for a club looking to develop players from within the ranks, it’s about playing opportunities for young and also the fringe players.
Giving time to fringe players in Europe has never worked for Arsenal as far as I know at least not in terms of creating starters from fringe players. Maybe it helps us develop guys that we can sell but I can’t think of many FRINGE players (the key word there) which we developed by playing them in extra games in Europe.
Would love to read some sandwich blogs Tim 🙂
Sorry, Tim, but I (respectfully) disagree that missing on CL/EL is blessing in disguise so to speak. Watching the likes of Chelsea play in Champions League, or even Leicester City and West Ham in Europa League, is yet another reminder how far the “mighty” (Arsenal) have fallen as a football club, and that all of those clubs have much superior managers to ours. Money is important, not arguing there… but it’s also about PRESTIGE, and we’re rapidly losing whatever left of it we have.
sure. that’s true, I can see that from a certain standpoint, though I would say that’s been the case now for a few years.
You’re not really disagreeing with my point, though.
But why do you watch Leicester and West Ham play in the Europa League? I’m joking, please don’t mind me… but I agree that we’re well out of Europe unless we’re in it to compete. It had become an excuse to charge fans more for their ‘prestige’ subscriptions.
I’d prefer the next pound the Kroenkes get out of Europe is one that has been earned on the back of investment in the squad, and that has a decent chance of being invested back into the squad.
Great post Tim
Certainly from a financial standpoint it a bad thing to miss out on any European football. Obviously returning to the Champions league is the clubs ultimate goal but that seems like at least a couple years away. During Arsene’s last couple of seasons and the first couple of seasons in the post Wenger era we were still trying to hold on to the idea that we could cobble together enough points to somehow climb back into the top 4 but that was never realistic. This summers transfer activity seems to indicate that we have finally accepted that we are not capable of competing for the top 4 and that a rebuild is needed. I think this season will see us somewhere close but not good enough to make the Europa league but hopefully rebuilding will eventually pay off and in a couple years we might once again be capable of competing for the top 4.
I think it really our current plight highlights the fact that we have really struggled the last 3-4 years but perhaps even more important it highlights just how much stronger the league has become in the last few years. Arsene’s teams were very inconsistent within seasons but his record of consecutive CL qualifications is a remarkable for its overall end of the season consistency. However, I doubt that will never happen again because the competition for the top 6-7 spots in our league is so much stronger. Man City, Chelsea ManU and Liverpool have joined them and those teams are going to take up 3-4 of the CL spots in most years but unlike what happened in most of the Wenger era teams like Spurs and Leicester have caught up with us and every year there is a team or 2 like Everton or West Ham will also compete for the top 4 which makes it very difficult. Fortunately Arsene did not have anything like that level of competition and our yearly CL qualification gave us bit of a sense of entitlement.
I 100% agree. I am going to enjoy this 1 year breather from European competition. I agree with the view that the week between games will help AFC in the PL and get us back into at least the Europa League next season, if not UCL (only 7pts back atm LOL)
i don’t care much about the money. it’s about the pride of being one of the best teams in europe and showcasing that quality against the other teams in an exclusive competition. everything else is bs to me.
bottom line, in order to deserve a place in the champions league, you have to win or at least be competing for the championship in your domestic league. arsenal haven’t done that in ages. it’s the reason i always disagreed with wenger saying top 4 is “like a trophy”. essentially, he lowered the bar. however, when arsenal were actually trying to win that domestic league, qualifying for the champions league took care of itself.
i miss watching arsenal showcase their talent on tuesday and wednesday evenings. not doing that means arsenal don’t have a top team. likewise, arsenal have become awful to watch. many neutrals used to tune in and watch an arsenal match simply to be entertained. it’s not nostalgic to think back what arsenal used to be, it’s depressing to see what arsenal have become.
from a blogger’s perspective, i’m sure you enjoy the break; probably a lot like i enjoy the off-season from coaching. however, i love coaching and i eventually miss it and am excited to resume it again in due season. my fear is the longer arsenal are not a top team, the more difficult it will become to resume that stature in the game.
“it’s about the pride of being one of the best teams in europe and showcasing that quality against the other teams in an exclusive competition. everything else is bs to me.”
sure, but I can’t honestly say that Arsenal’s European adventures filled me with pride or proved that we were one of the best teams in Europe. Apart from the final against Barcelona we’ve almost always been one of the worst of the top teams in either competition and I’d even go so far as to say that often our inclusion in that competition was down to bare ass luck and the money that we got from the competition rather than a great deal of talent in all positions on the pitch, something the academy was doing very well.
Wenger was also both the reason we got in to the competition and the reason we sucked there. It’s complicated but especially after that 10-2 clubbing by Bayern, I really felt we didn’t deserve to be in Europe and it turned out that it only took a few years for that to fully mature (basically for the money and talent to dry up).
I don’t think having a sense of entitlement is a bad thing. It means you have a reasonably high level of expectation for the club. I am a fan of the Texas Rangers in American baseball and I think we are still the only team out of the 30 Major League Baseball teams that has never won the World Series. This season we are going to lose more then 100 games for the second season in a row. If there was relegation in baseball we would have long ago been demoted. Baseball is my first childhood sport and I love the Rangers but I am resigned to their fate which is exactly the opposite of a sense of entitlement. Of those 2 I would certainly prefer a sense of entitlement
Living in a country that Nicki Minaj has made temporarily famous is wild. Who needs European football? 😄Oh man, what a week to be alive.
Josh, agree with everything you said.
It’s been a while since Arsenal scored a free kick that mattered.
3 points at stake boys… please get this away win.
A win at Burnley is always enjoyable.
Despite changing many of the players the approach / challenges remains the same. Our creativity in the final third is still piss poor. And fine margins is a high risk strategy. Burnley caused us enough problems to make a single goal lead uncomfortable.
Even ugly wins gain us three points and are very welcome. Stolid defence earning the clean sheet plus Odegaard’s magical moment won us those points but this team has a long road to travel to regain the status we used to take for granted. Next weekend will be a bigger test and taking at least a point from that game willl be crucial to team morale and Arteta’s project.
Ugly wins count the same as any other win. We have climbed back into 13th place. Credit to Odegaard for a great free kick but we can’t count on those sort of goals. We had what I suspect most would consider our strongest attacking line up but we certainly did not look like we had much chance of scoring from open play. We have just finished 2 games against the 19th and 20th place teams in our league and we won both games 1-0. It certainly highlights the difficulty we will probably have scoring goals this year. Which player in our squad do we expect to score? Thankfully we are good at preventing the opposition from scoring. I am sure we will have a run of better form at some point this season and score a few more goals but I think these last 2 games give us a blueprint of how we will win games for most of this year. A lot of clean sheets. 1-nil to the Arsenal.
Beast of a performance by Gabriel and Tomiyasu. These two are premier league style defenders in every sense of the word.
Great free kick by Odegaard, but i am somehow not persuaded by him at CM, as he doesn’t have the work rate or nous to fill the Cazorla role.
As for the attack, Saka had a quiet game, Pepe had a few chances, and Auba seemed to lack a bit of incisiveness. This attack has been the first choice attack for the past year so if its not right yet, maybe the formula needs adjustment
Not saying no to three points, so this is one of those forgettable job-done performances.
I really enjoyed that game. Not because we played brilliantly or because it was high scoring end to end stuff, but because of Arsenal’s character, the way we asserted ourselves and refused to get bullied.
Couple of moments come to mind, Saka bouncing up after another deliberate clattering, Tavares and AMN just charging up the touchline and keeping the ball despite Burnley tackles flying in, trying to take them out.
I’m usually sympathetic towards the smaller, less fashionable teams. I was impressed with Tarkowski’s quality, he snuffed out some of our dangerous moves, but overall on yesterday’s showing, Burnley deserve their reputation as a bunch of cunts, a well-drilled, hard-working and committed bunch of cunts.
Late tackles, deliberately leading with elbows, shoulders and hips, off the ball pushes and niggles and obstructions, diving and simulation. A cynical, physical and technically limited team, you could see that their only game plan was to physically dominate Arsenal and when they couldn’t do that, they lost heart, lost fight and got more and more frustrated. Gabriel, White, Tomi and Ramsdale were a big part of that. White standing with his foot on the ball a couple of years away from Barnes looked composed and in control. There was that backpass but overall he was good, and good in the air too.
As for the manager, I liked the team selection. He clearly instructed Partey to focus on dropping back and helping out the defence, which he did very well, and added to our resilience. At times he was playing as a third CB. That definitely affected our ability to go forward, we relied on Odegaard to progress the ball and he worked his arse off but needed more support. For the reasons given though, I didn’t mind that, I thought it was the right call.
I wasn’t even angry with Burnley, I didn’t hate them, I just enjoyed watching them fail.
ramsdale looks to have displaced leno. it’s not that he’s better but he has a bigger personality and seems to connect with the defenders better than leno. one of my former players admitted to being a fan of his a couple of years ago. great performance from him.
i like tomi as well. i recall watching the youtube videos and being impressed with his overall game, especially the ability to defend 1v1. gabriel was a beast, too. some arteta signings seemed political, namely david luiz, cedric, willian, and a few other portuguese-speakers that edu facilitated. tomi, rams, gabriel, partey, sambi, and ode are not. they are all good signings. the jury’s still out on ben white.
now, let’s talk about this attack. toothless. in the first 5 games of the season, arsenal have scored 2 goals and neither of them were a product of good football. there was the auba goal derived from a lucky deflection. then there was the bit of brilliance from odegaard. that’s two single-goal performances against the two bottom teams in the league; not impressive at all. arteta needs a better strategy to score goals than relying on dumb luck or a player’s individual brilliance.
my position concerning the necessary inclusion of lacazette is clear. without his impact, arsenal struggle to create good chances, let alone score. this is even against the bad teams arsenal played in their last two matchdays. the club are in a bit of trouble with laca as he’s in the final year of his contract. a few weeks ago, laca leaked that he’ll leave next summer…..before arsenal could leak that they haven’t made him an offer. arsenal should have squared this kid away a year ago, certainly before last christmas. my opinion: i believe laca was willing to extend if arsenal had made him an offer before the start of the season. i anticipate the club will try to not play him but arsenal will continue to be impotent in attack and will have no other choice. with that, the club froze out ozil and took their lumps for the sake of their ego so who knows what they’ll do. we’ll see.
Josh
We have 4+ years sample size of Laca now and you seem to be the only person I know who really thinks he makes the team a lot better. If he had really been a significant game changer for our attack then he would be playing regularly.
I agree that our attack looks toothless. However, the idea there is some tactical tweak or formation change that a different manager could make which would unlock hidden potential attacking and goal scoring nous is just not realistic.
Missed the game, caught the highlights.
Ramsdale played well, and everyone is rightly giving props to his command of the area. Brentford’s 2nd goal against us should have been disallowed by the ref fora foul on Leno, but Leno didnt help his case by allowing himself to be bullied by the Brentford defender, and not making a right royal stink about it afterwards. You get the impression watching Ramsdale that he’d not have allowed either to happen. Bernd seems the quiet type; Ramsdale the vocal type.
So Ramsdale is justifying his selection, but David Seaman has an interesting take… he said that Leno didnt play badly enough to be dropped.
“If I was Leno I’d feel a bit aggrieved by it if I’m honest, he hasn’t really played badly.”
The whole thing is here. https://metro.co.uk/2021/09/18/david-seaman-fears-arsenal-star-will-feel-aggrieved-after-mikel-arteta-decision-15278451/
Im happy with Ramsdale. His sheer pleasure at playing for Arsenal is a joy to watch. It’s just a shame that the team management felt they needed to justify his inclusion by publicly embarrassing Leno on their own website. That smacks of insecurity and a bit too much defensiveness. A good decision eventually reveals itself.
Tomi has brought something to RB that Bellerin sorely lacked… defensive toughness. And he’s miles better as a footballer than Chambers, who has that, and is two-footed. He’s a very good buy.
Partey again key to how we function, but Im beginning to worry about the guy’s brittleness..
Josh
One thing I tend to forget is Laca was our leading scorer last season. He is never going to be prolific in the PL and the idea that his skills as a CF could be the skeleton that unlocks the potential of our attacking players seems very far feteched. However so far Auba is looking his age and Pepe is reverting back to what he has been for most of his Arsenal career and Laca might end up being the best scorer we have.