I know some here will blame the players, but I am sorry..the manager is useless. He can't seem to get any rhythm out of this team at all. However, his tactics are faaakcing atrocious. We play to not lose. It's very rare that we play to win and win by a large margin. Arteta seems to be a "win by one goal" manager and so often we default to defending. Even versus Spurs, we were on top, but the moment Spurs had a go at us, we crept back into our collective shell. Spurs with 10 men dominated our 11. West ham...less said about that the better. Benfica, Olympiakos...numerous times we look like we have no idea what to do going forward. Today, we played sooo deep...against a Liverpool team that has looked shaky. We had what...2 attempts on goal? Versus a young and inexperienced (in the PL) defence. So so pathetic. Arteta said the handbrake was off....what a massive lie.
Gah...can't even get all my thoughts around this.
PS..just finished watching the game on delay.
Still think Arteta is the man?
posted on 4/4/21
In isolation that performance means little, it's more the entire time Arteta has been manager that should ring alarm bells. Sadly the FA Cup is deluding some people into thinking he's the right man for the job when he clearly isn't
posted on 4/4/21
As Gary Neville said at least 5 of the players starting last night refused to take in the tactical knowledge given to them for this specific game. This squad needs a major clear out and right now you’d keep 5 or 6 players and build around them. Whoever comes in is left with this squad, is left with significant reduced budget if we do not make Europe. These are worrying times.
posted on 4/4/21
Mikel Allerdyce
posted on 4/4/21
I havent done for a long time. The improvement from 16tth to 10th (once Villa have played their 2 games in hand I expect they will get at least the1 point needed to go back above us) is something but we should be doing so much better. the end to last season and slight improvement papering over the cracks. Actually, while typing this Im thinking was last season down to Arteta or down to Emi being a great organiser of his defence, something I said I thought he was our best at since Seaman. Now we just look disorganised and I think Holding and Gabriel have never looked good as a CB partnership. Easy to say with hindsight that Mari and Holding have the better partnership and should have played. Im all for giving managers the benefit of the doubt, they are the professionals to my being an armchair fan, but they need still to earn the respect of fans and Arteta just doesnt from me. .
posted on 4/4/21
comment by Pride of the North (U6803)
posted 3 hours, 42 minutes ago
He needs more time. Tie him down to a 5 year contract and let him keep working his magic.
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Don't worry we all think the same about Ole!!!
posted on 4/4/21
comment by PowerkingHenry27 (U18930)
posted 3 hours, 13 minutes ago
As Gary Neville said at least 5 of the players starting last night refused to take in the tactical knowledge given to them for this specific game. This squad needs a major clear out and right now you’d keep 5 or 6 players and build around them. Whoever comes in is left with this squad, is left with significant reduced budget if we do not make Europe. These are worrying times.
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What tactical instructions mate? We looked like we were ordered to sit back and soak up pressure. You cant do that for 90 minutes hoping to get a lucky break. Especially as Liverpool pressed us haigh and worked hard that we rarely had an out ball or the quality to execute the pass when needed.
I'd argue that the instructions were bad to begin with. Asking Auba, Pepe, Odegaard to all play in our own half is stupid.
And how is it that we as fans can see that all the teams who beat Liverpool went at them but Arteta did not? You can play on the counter after going a goal up...but we simply cannot soak up pressure for 90mins. It worked in the FA cup run..but we were lucky...Auba was on fire. Our chance creation was still very very low.
posted on 4/4/21
comment by RonAlvinho (U6117)
posted 4 hours, 12 minutes ago
Unfortunately his "this is not acceptable" speeches are getting a little tiring now.
We all loved the streak we went on after the Chelsea game... All the evidence is suggesting that Arteta stumbled into that team selection & system.
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This is why I think Arteta is a fraud. That formation and personnel worked. Ut he has tried so hard to bring in players who simply did not work. Willian for example. And Auba on the left. He also shunted ESR out wide..where he is still effective but less so.
Arteta is a very reactive manager and somehow starts games trying to negate the opponent's strengths rather than imposing our team on the opponent. I dont understand why Cedric does not start EVERY game at RB now unless rested or injured. How Chambers gets that spot is baffling..regardless of his crosses vs Spurs
posted on 4/4/21
comment by MaineGunner (U10130)
posted 3 hours, 24 minutes ago
comment by PowerkingHenry27 (U18930)
posted 3 hours, 13 minutes ago
As Gary Neville said at least 5 of the players starting last night refused to take in the tactical knowledge given to them for this specific game. This squad needs a major clear out and right now you’d keep 5 or 6 players and build around them. Whoever comes in is left with this squad, is left with significant reduced budget if we do not make Europe. These are worrying times.
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What tactical instructions mate? We looked like we were ordered to sit back and soak up pressure. You cant do that for 90 minutes hoping to get a lucky break. Especially as Liverpool pressed us haigh and worked hard that we rarely had an out ball or the quality to execute the pass when needed.
I'd argue that the instructions were bad to begin with. Asking Auba, Pepe, Odegaard to all play in our own half is stupid.
And how is it that we as fans can see that all the teams who beat Liverpool went at them but Arteta did not? You can play on the counter after going a goal up...but we simply cannot soak up pressure for 90mins. It worked in the FA cup run..but we were lucky...Auba was on fire. Our chance creation was still very very low.
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The game plan was obviously to start on the front foot like we did against spurs. Play with a lot of energy, get the ball to odegaard but l’pool pressed us well and suffocated our midfield, our passing was poor and we couldn’t keep the ball. Players let us down as much as Arteta , his team selection was poor but the players were flat and that’s not how he set them up to play them.
posted on 4/4/21
comment by PowerkingHenry27 (U18930)
posted 1 hour, 1 minute ago
comment by MaineGunner (U10130)
posted 3 hours, 24 minutes ago
comment by PowerkingHenry27 (U18930)
posted 3 hours, 13 minutes ago
As Gary Neville said at least 5 of the players starting last night refused to take in the tactical knowledge given to them for this specific game. This squad needs a major clear out and right now you’d keep 5 or 6 players and build around them. Whoever comes in is left with this squad, is left with significant reduced budget if we do not make Europe. These are worrying times.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
What tactical instructions mate? We looked like we were ordered to sit back and soak up pressure. You cant do that for 90 minutes hoping to get a lucky break. Especially as Liverpool pressed us haigh and worked hard that we rarely had an out ball or the quality to execute the pass when needed.
I'd argue that the instructions were bad to begin with. Asking Auba, Pepe, Odegaard to all play in our own half is stupid.
And how is it that we as fans can see that all the teams who beat Liverpool went at them but Arteta did not? You can play on the counter after going a goal up...but we simply cannot soak up pressure for 90mins. It worked in the FA cup run..but we were lucky...Auba was on fire. Our chance creation was still very very low.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The game plan was obviously to start on the front foot like we did against spurs. Play with a lot of energy, get the ball to odegaard but l’pool pressed us well and suffocated our midfield, our passing was poor and we couldn’t keep the ball. Players let us down as much as Arteta , his team selection was poor but the players were flat and that’s not how he set them up to play them.
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I agree that the players looked flat and some of the passing was atrocious. However, I dont think we were set up to play in the front foot at all. We have played on the front foot and gotten hammered in other games in recent years...but I could see we were playing to attack. Yesterday...we were non existent as an attacking threat. We had 3 shots all game and we had at one point 5 touches in their box. The whole team was camped in our half...
I donno...but nothing about yesterday signified that we were attacking and we could have played for 2 more hours and not been a threat. It was horrible. A bit like the City game when we lost 1 nil but were completely outclassed from the 1st minute. I dont mind losing games...but I require fight at the very least
posted on 4/4/21
comment by 4everanarsenalfan (U20629)
posted 16 hours, 6 minutes ago
Arteta isn’t useless if he was we would not have won the F.A cup beating Chelsea and City along the way
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I think he got lucky. The injury to Leno meant Emi had to come in and Emi is good at organising the defence to get what he wants from them. I think this helped our defence to perform better and now we are back to the Arteta controlled defence with a keeper who is not as good at organising his defence the cracks have shown. Even the choice of partnering Gabriel and Holding at CB caused me concerns before the game and they were borne out.
Arteta also said last season that he would not change too much until the summer and would try to keep some consistency in the tactics to the end of the season and would start trying to implement his style of football this season. The difference between last season and this season is down to Arteta making these changes.