Preferred team to face Westham from media and blogs in UK.

The Express
Leno, Bellerin, Holding, Luiz, Tierney; Xhaka, Guendouzi, Aubameyang, Ozil, Martinelli, Lacazette.

Evening Standard
Leno, Bellerin, Luiz, Holding, Tierney; Guendouzi, Xhaka; Pepe, Ozil, Aubameyang; Lacazette.

The Guardian
Leno, Bellerin, Luiz, Sokratis, Tierney; Torreira, Xhaka, Guendouzi, Pepe, Ozil, Aubameyang.

The Independent
Leno, Bellerin, Luiz, Holding, Tierney, Guendouzi, Xhaka; Pepe, Ozil, Aubameyang, Lacazette.

Red London
Leno, Bellerin, Chambers, Holding, Tierney, Guendouzi, Torreira, Xhaka, Pepe, Aubameyang, Martinelli.

Which is the best,?

3)Contract mismanagement and a spiralling wage bill
Arsenal actually have a very competitive wage bill but it has been poorly managed, with average players having been handed far too much over the years. That wage bill was manageable while the club were in the Champions League, but three years outside of Europe's elite competition are now taking their toll.

"It’s no secret that we have a Champions League wage bill on a Europa League budget right now. That’s a fact." Those were the words of Josh Kroenke earlier in the summer and they have been proven by the club's latest set of accounts for the 2018-19 season which showed a loss of £23m.

4)Wasted millions and poor squad management
The recruitment on the whole has been poor, most notably in the summer of 2016 when Granit Xhaka, Shkodran Mustafi and Lucas Perez were brought in at a price of close to £100 million ($132m).

Others such as Danny Welbeck, Mathieu Debuchy, Gabriel, Calum Chambers and Sokratis have all come in for in excess of £10m and have failed to make much of an impact.

Over the past decade Arsenal have not had many success stories in the transfer market and they have also sold very poorly at times, especially when you compare their record with other top-flight Premier League teams.

Below Goal takes a look at some of the contributing factors behind Arsenal's worst slump in decades.

1)Absent ownership.
At any organisation - sporting or otherwise - the ownership needs to be strong and decisive. If it’s not, problems will arise and at Arsenal there is no doubt that the Kroenkes are a major problem.
When Stan Kroenke first arrived in 2007, Arsenal had just been in the Champions League final. Wind the clock forward 12 years and they are now facing up to the prospect of their first season without European football in 25 years.

2)Wenger staying too long
Wenger staying too long only added to that issue and on the whole his signings were poor. The club spent big money on transfer fees and on contracts when that cash could have been spent far better.

The one summer when Arsenal really should have kicked on was after the 2015 FA Cup win yet the only addition Wenger made was Petr Cech. Not a single outfield player was brought in and Arsenal went on to fall away during the 2015-16 season while Leicester won the title.
It was a massive missed opportunity.

The lack of ambition that summer set the wheels in motion for the Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil contract sagas that went on to dominate the headlines for the following 18 months.

BlueRayDick:


Are u seriously pinning this on somebody else other than Emery?

Even OGS wey be noob coach sef was bold enough to handover captainship to Maguire in the absence of their captain. Wo forget, emery na just one yeye human manager

You don't get it, who is the captain material after Cech and Kosc? There is none worthy to be the captain.
Xhaka ended in tears and Auba is far from it. Maguire is everything a leader, big man at Leicester and England at world cup..
.Pick a leader at Viera,Kompany,V.dijk,Milner,
Ramos kind of personalty at Arsenal.. You'll not be able..

As for Emery, until I see another manager come do wonders with the Xhakas and Mustafis, only then I'll agree he is shitty.

Keky:
Emery wanted a midfielder reinforcement and a good CB. He knew our weak points. He got a winger, no midfielder and an old CB. This shows that the club isn't run properly.

Kroenko told us be excited, they used Pepe to scam fans. Pepe wasn't the first choice, I watched a video he said he wanted to ease Pepe like Fabinho since he isn't Zaha who knows the League..
It was even difficult to select captain, he had to tell players choose, captain coming out publicly to say we are scared...
Arsenal's job isn't attractive to any top manager, none is willing to come soil his image.

Spy360:

I am not with you on this. There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever. Wenger became obsolete, but Emery was shitt. If Emery had continued, we would be taking guns and other ammunitions to defend Emirates. Wenger in all his deterioration, never led us to this extent where we dropped to 11th and being scared of facing Newcastle away. Wenger was a come back lord, he would have found a temporal solution to get us back again.

Wenger in his deterioration had only city,Liverpool,Chelsea and utd, now we have spurs, Leicester and wolves..
Wenger,Emery, the players, no solution anywhere... A very good manager will only make us look "okay".

Keky:
Fkhalifa

Bro, I hope they will not see this as taking sides with Emery, the truth is Emery had his issues, quite alright, but arsenal's problem is bigger than just "coaching" ...The errors committed by Wenger's £70M in Xhaka and Mustafi would have landed us in UCL by now, is Emery a magician or error correcting machine, that he'll change them suddenly?

Why do you think the top managers are not gunning for Arsenal job?

Comparing Arsenal's situation to Buhari,Amosun,Ameachi talk is a joke..

The only worthy players Wenger left was Auba,Laca,Ramsey and Bellerin.. Montreal..ageing
Iwobi..potentials

Did you see Pep and Klopp's massive team overhaul? Is it this penny pinching and buying cheap options that'll not spoil any manager with a good CV like Emery's image?

I read the below in a forum __

If Wenger was still in charge we would have been relegated last season, Football in England has changed..

Emery finished a point away from CL in the PL and made the EL final.
Unfortunately he was not allowed to buy his own payers because
Mislintat and then Sanllehi buy the players.
Emery wanted Nzonzi and would have preferred a top class CB.
But Sven Mislintat bought Socritis and this season Sanllehi bought Luiz and Pepe.
So Emery got lumbered with Socritis Luiz Mustafi Xhaka Torreira and Pepe.
Emery tried to sell Mustafi Elneny Ozil and Mkhitarian but none would leave.

Till now no buyers for the above named players..

You're only fvckn deceiving yourself, if you are blaming all crisis on Emery, and not tracing this Arsenal's problems from past regimes..

P.s...This is not to say Emery doesn't have his problems.

BlueRayDick:


I don't know how u will take this, but lemme apologize before hand in case u are offended by dis.

Honestly what u write up here is typical of what a Buhari supporter would write. Jonathan has been ousted for over 4 years and Buhari has taken the reins of power determined to steer the ship of the nation toward economic growth and development. However each time people ask Buhari for the better life he promised, he looks back and points at Jonathan for doing irreparable damage to the economy. Even when people tend to take Buhari up on the fact tgag some things that were better under Jonathan are getting worse under him, he still finds a way to link it to Jonathan (of course without him doing anything to improve the situation)

That is exactly what u did with Wenger and Emery up there. Wenger already got the boot. He was asked to go for not being able to win the coveted trophies the club has been mocked to lack in recent times, he took his L and moved on. The club looked at Emery's CV and passed him the job thinking he will do better than his predecessor ( they didn't even think sef, they expected him to do better). Why? Because He's shown he can win cups in modern day football. He's done that with sevilla and Psg. He said he was okay with the players at his disposal, he was not known to show disdain for any player other than ozil....He was ready to work with everyone else.

Now bàbà has failed woefully, he's not just failed to win the major cups, he lost the smaller ones wenger would've given us as consolation and he played a drab uninspiring style of football while doing that. Emery was 4cking expected to be an improvement of Wenger, not a worse version.

Chelsea sacked Sarri for how he played and almost didn't make the top 4, so far Lampard has looked like an improved version. That's what Emery was expected to be not posting winless streak upandan.

This post will not be complete without saying thunder fire sir Good Ebening

I'm not interested in the politics side of your talks, if a buharist see your post, he/she will also counter and rubbish what you put there.

Emery was asked to come take us back to UCL, that was the target, every other thing else is secondary..

Kokanes's believe that Emery destroyed the good work Wenger left is what I'll never agree, in truth and in fact, Wenger was sacked, the team was going down, fans boycotted the stadium, we were in deep mess.

The reality is this is not city where anything change overnight,I'm telling you no top manager will do wonders with this squad, we're stucked with deadwoods, we can't even see any buyer and everything is in shambles..

Emery's first year was okay and nearly every fans will agree his loyalty to rubbish players was his undoing...

Wenger would have won us the smaller cups is laughable, football has changed, he won't win jack in this present age and time.

My argument was not support or cover Emery,but to reject the idea of "Emery spoiled the great work of Wengee"

Sarri inherited a title winning squad, Lampard? Season hasn't finished, Emery was also in top4 last DEC.

kokaneprodigy:
which of his signings have been able to replace the so called deadwoods reliably. Which of his signings have been exceptional?

The fact remains Wengay already messed up the financial side of this club, by purchasing scraps with huge money( £100M on Xhaka,Mustafi andPerez).., it was not going to be easy to lay them off and get better players with thr Arsenal's T.budget. the young Guen and Torreira came and already became fan's favorite ahead of Xhaka and Elneny.

The only proper signings are Pepe,Leno, Tierney and Torreira, the rest are just ( help us fix it and potentials)..

The free, loan and low priced commodities in the market we got in Ceballos, Denis Suarez, Luiz,Guen,Martinelli et al, are results of financial mismanagement of the previous regime.

In Wenger’s last season Arsenal finished 12 points off 4th.
In Emery’s first season Arsenal finished 1 point off 4th.
That’s an enormous improvement( even though so many individual errors from players marred us) despite the mess Wenger left the club
both on and off the field.

kokaneprodigy:

Emery is the reason we are where we are. Emery had one job build on what Wenger has done strengthen it and what did he do he scattered everything with his hands.

You will agree we had one of the best attacks and midfield in the league during Wenger. The weakness was defence. Emery came in and all areas suddenly became abysmal and u want to blame only the players.

What did Wenger do? Wenger was done at top level since, Things looked better then for 2 major reasons

1)The league wasn't that hard as this..

1) We had Sanchez( Quality and hardworking attacker required in modern day football in England)

After Sanchez, we couldn't win any away game in the league from Jan 2018 till last day against Huddersfield.

City embarased us with our new signing Auba and Mhicky 3-0 at Wembley and Emirates, we were far behind top4 and fans had started boycotting the stadium, so he was sacked..
.we couldn't beat a 10 man Atletico, we were that bad.. I knew from that day, this players are not worthy, not even a good send off for the boss.

Emery cleared some dead woods,( they were too many) and did okay in first year, though fuulishly persisted with some erratic not good enough players, and they let him down, Auba's missed penalty and/ or Xhaka's error against Brighton missed us from UCL.

It was his 2nd year when he persisted with some useless players and rubbish formations that kicked him out.

The EPL this season is different from last season and previous seasons. It is played with energy, fight, grit, determination, stamina and pace by all the teams except Arsenal.

If we keep playing the same formation with 7 defensive players and only 3 attacking players, we will be relegated mark my words. I mean, we could hardly string 5 passes together before getting dispossessed and by getting dispossessed, I mean we literally pass the ball back to the opposition.

But there is a solution, we have a COMBINATION of players in the squad who can play the game with skill, energy, fight, grit, determination, stamina and pace with 70% success rate for starters. We should start using those players and work on them in training to play possession based, quick, one-touch football and drill them on pressing off the ball.

Copied

kokaneprodigy:

I agree with the first paragraph and strongly disagree with the second.

Well, not many will agree, but is not better we rest the big men and try out the youths for 5 games? Maybe the senior men will be refreshed, maybe we discover some youths who are ready.

The only hope now is Europa, let them Xhaka, Ozil go win it, the youngsters should just play for top6.

kokaneprodigy:
it won’t help their development, they’ll chop beating sotey they’ll be traumatised. They’ll loathe the manager for putting them in line of fire trust me their confidence will wither. No EPL team can play a youth dominated team in in the league and get anywhere.

That's your view, in so far this lads are ready to burst their guts, they'll never see a cricket score, that am sure, you feel Holding will be committing errors every match day? Or you see him making stvpid fouls?
Don't forget we are out of ucl because of Xhaka, he single handedly cost us 2 points at home to Brighton?
The senior players can be coming from the bench at 70mint..

Still having faith in the senior clowns will continue to put you in more sorrows.

If We make the f.f the major part of match day squad in the league..
Tierney
Macro
Holding
Chambers
Niles
Guendozi
Torreira
Willock
Pepe
Martinelli
Smith Rowe
Nelson.
, They can't do worse, it will even give them the exoerience.
Let the senior clowns play Europa and Fa cup, since they do not have energy to play week in week out.

kokaneprodigy:
At some point we saw potential in Ox, Wilshere, Walcott, Chamak, etc potential is what it is “potential”

Clichy,Sagna,Schezney,Alex Song,Fabregas,Hleb et al were also potentials

kokaneprodigy:

This is speculative at best.
By the way the players you claimed turned out good. Were they playing in a team predominantly youth or were transitioned into the senior team till they could earn their place.?

I'm talking for future purpose, the talk was to get a new manager, clear the senior clowns and mix the youths with the new proper recruits.

What Spy and Sod are suggesting is we play the youths that they can't be worse, which I feel will help their devpt.

kokaneprodigy:
The way yall keep sounding like the young guys will all turn out good is extreme optimism. Wenger is one of the best in nurturing young talents out there and not all players under his tutelage turned out good.

Stop stating as fact what u ain’t sure will happen, it’s a gamble and will forever be a gamble.

We can see potentials, and with right management, there's high chance they turn good.
Wenger was arguably the best at this in his early years,but the Arnold,Robertson,Sane,Alli,Odoi,Mbappe,Jota,
Jao Felix,Sancho et al turned out good elsewhere in recent times

For me, I see at least 7 out of the f0llowing 11 turn out good enough to make the squad in future.

Holding,
Mavropsnos,
Niles,
Martinelli
Guendozi
Willock
Nelson
Saka
Nketiah
Torreira
Smith Rowe

iamoyindamola:
we need total overhaul on the senior players without sparing any the young ones will change with time...

The attitude of the next manager towards the Senior clowns will determine what his performance will be..
I thought Emery will be ruthless,( though he showed signs in his early days) but he proved to be another puppet, yes ma/pa to fans and forming rubbish my squad is good enough..

You're right the young players can still change, Gnabry,Adelaide, Vela,Oxlade,Bennacer,Coq et Al, all grew and looked different under proper management.

pazienza:


But Freddie said he is not going to change much.
That's nonsense. The team needs a major change.

I dey tell you, I noticed the boys raised the game early in the 2nd half, since the goal didn't come, their heads dropped ( mental weakness) and Brighton showed super energy all over the pitch.

This lazy soft way of doing things has eaten deep from wenger days such that it'll take years,

Why do you think top managers with good CV aren't gunning for the job? My brother, until ww get an highly spirited manager like Espirito to reoriente and nuture this youngsters, bring in energetic talented players and ditch out the scammers in the team.

iamoyindamola:
I was thinking he won't play to the fans decision.
It's obvious he doesn't want the wrath of the fans making him a puppet either way the fans will boot him out too.

Ododo oro!

Relying on Freddie and these lads either overnight or long timed like Pa Wenger is sure to end in tears.

iamoyindamola:
That is actually the solution... IMO we should sell lacazette,auba,ozil, xhaka,mustafi and those foolish old defenders we can rebuild with the youngsters.
We have nketiah,Jules and martinelli for cf position
Saka,Nelson,Pepe and martinelli for wing
Midfield we try to get dacoúre partner him with torreira, we can toast Bournemouth for brooks or we buy ceballos
Defence we have holding,Dino, chambers and saliba coming..we need another right back.
These youngsters can't do worse than what the agbayas are doing.
I have already given up on this team, my hope is we avoid relegation and likely win europa

Lol..Arsenal fans will behead you if they hear sell Auba,Ozil and Laca, fans rate them like MSN..

The young players you listed need instense training in a pre season,I fear they are already infected with the tm"take it easy" Arsenal syndrome....

I dey imagine Doucoure,Moy and Torreria running the midfield 3.I'll take Gerard Delefou,Lewis Dunk and Timo Werner.

iamoyindamola:
Na arsenal go suffer this for next week

When you see the attitude of utd to stop city, and city's electric pressure on them, chai...you'll want to clear everyone outta this club.

The star is in the attitude, massive energy and resiliency from the boys, running, closing down, sticking legs and bodies to everything coming their way...

Honourable mentions:
AWB...Strength and agility to stop Sterling (that's a MOTM job there)

Tominay..covers every ground
Fred...good with the ball
James....insane speed, very good attacking player
Rashford....Pressed from the front, massive energy.

kokaneprodigy:
if u are calling what he met a mess. What will u call what he left for Ljunberg?

A good manager can still work something out on
Leno
Tierney
Torreira
Guendozi
Pepe
Martinelli
Ceballos
Saliba

He didn't bring in Sokratis and Luiz for long term...

kokaneprodigy:
which? Most of the players saving us week in week out are wenger’s.

Old Monreal would even offer more than what Tierney has done so far.

The summer of 16/17 will go down as the dark year which wrecked the club slow and steady progress which set us back big time and we are still feeling the effect now. it also allowed liverpool to rise above us as they were in the same position as us a few years ago.

16/17 we got xhaka, mustafi, perez and 100m wasted

If we had got the 2016/17 signings right we would have a good cb and dm and continued to progress steadily toward the top of the league.

Mustafi alone cost more than Sokratis/Luiz combined, Pa Wenger wasted what Emery will jejely use sign correct defenders

Xhaka's fee alone will buy us Kante and Wanyama.

So trace the problem down.

Elohe001:



so far so good

Cross out Allegri to,He sure knows what befell Emery will befall him with this lots, doesn't speak English, he is another good ezening waiting to happen, needs huge fund and rumored to have said No.
.
Poch has reportedly said No

Arsenal will not risk Arterta..

So give it to the last man standing

Jodera:
Seriously, that's true at the bolded. Even as we equalised yesterday, you could see that there's no one player that we could look at for the winning goal. The passion and desire to win the game yesterday was there, but you could see the quality was really lacking. By 80min they were tired, and b4 you know, boom...Brighton scored.
We lack quality and confidence bro.
Lacazette was off
Auba made for cf only
Ozil is waning
Willock (mtcheww)
Torriera was the only person trying, but not an effective scorer or an attack initiator
Xhaka tried but too one dimensional and lack mobility
Kolasinac...so one sided. Always taking the harder route over the easy one
Bellerin...tried but made so many wrong decision ystdy
Sok and luiz...never inspiring
Leno...as usual, consistent

Sub
Martinelli...ought to be starting over lacazette now
Tierney... A good crosser of d ball. Really under utilized.
Pepe....one of his best games ystdy in d league

There's no better assessment than what you put there, that's my view on them all...

At the bolded, I remember a Liverpool fan telling me after the final at Baku, how he wanted us to win,he said when he saw our lineup, he couldn't pick any scary dangerous player in our team to trouble Chelsea, I mentioned 2 big names in the team, he hissed and said what's scary about those ones, that he meant someone like Mane..

The way forward now are,:
concentrate on winning Europa/Fa cup( our boys no get energy to dig it week in week out in the league)..

keep ljumberg till season ending( no big coach will want to come soil his CV with these clowns)

Go for Nuno in the summer, then let's rebuild from there.

kokaneprodigy:
And they are both Emery’s signings but we still go as far as blaming Wenger for Emeryball

Emery's signings are better than the mess he met.

BlueRayDick:
Yesterday's match could've ended differently, but Ljunberg's inexperience was his undoing. At the point we were tied at 1-1, he could've taken out Ozil whose only contribution to that game is the corner-kicks he played all night. Taking out Ozil and introducing martinelli would've mounted pressure on Brighton's backline making it difficult for them to leave their defence to attack us which led to their second goal.

I think going forward he needs to also ditch Sokratis for Chambers in that CB role. Sokratis just finds it so difficult to play ball with his feet. He excels in Jam-body only.

You're spot on Martinelli/Ozil sub, Somebodyhino can run,press,create and score headers.. His energy could have done something late on.

BlueRayDick:


This was exactly what I was saying the other day. Xhaka can never ever play in the middle of the park either as a CM or DM. All he wants to do is stand at a particular spot and spray passes to the end of the earth. None of the CM/DM of top 6 teams play that way(This explains where we are where we are). He seem to slow for premiership where one has to make decisions in an instant.

Sincerely Xhaka needs to go to make way for somebody faster and mobile. At a point yesterday i wished Torriera had Xhaka's stature whcih Xhaka was obviously wasting away

Exactly, Torrreira would be up there with the topDMs in the league only if he's built like Xhaka.I think same to