Spy360:

We dey do give away. Sod to Man City.

I don’t care who you put in front as attackers/ midfielders, if the defense is abysmal and comical like ours, you can’t win games. You may have to score 3 or more in many instances to guarantee you a win and that is our situation. Our defense is the butt of joke in the EPL.
We desperately need to overhaul our CB roster, it is a joke to put kindly and has caused us so much pain and points. Also we need to buy players for the role they should be playing and stop cutting corners by converting players and having them take roles they are uncomfortable with. There are pieces in the midfield and attack that can keep us competitive if we have a decent defense.

vicenzo:


Please no more Chelsea aged players.
We can't continue repeating mistakes of yesterdays and expect different outcome.

Chelsea aging players never did us any good. From Gallas to Cech, Luiz

We need better. No one should be mentioning Willian here. He is looking for retirement home. Emirates is not one. Three years contract for an aging midfielder. Totally not worth it. We should and can do better. Rather give the game time to our younger players to improve their craft than buy aging Willian looking for a place of comfort.

We should get Marlang to replace Kolasinac on the Left. Marlang is just 21yrs, can play left CB and LB. His strong point is passing ability and speed. Very ideal for a possession based team that would also play highline when passing up the pitch and hence needs a speedy CB that can rush back to stop counters from opponents when play breaks down.
He is free, if he flops, we can always cut our loses and resale.
If Arsenal were a serious club not run by morons, this is a transfer we would have since concluded.

Serious clubs like Chelsea, Bayern have almost concluded their transfers. Arsenal is waiting for people to finish buying the hot talents, then we go for left over cheap scraps.
This club is cursed,I swear. Damn you Kroenke!

The bolded is 75% of Arsenal's problem. Its a pity some of our fans are still hoping hoping and hoping.

The Alaye you did above is good, but not an unambitious club like Arsenal will listen to you until you put a threat to their profit.

Jodera:
Hmm...
In as much everyone is shouting cb cb. I still feel cb or our back line can be managed till we sort the pressing issues at hand. Which are good DM, Am and good attack (wingers) before any cb.

Come to think of it, our midfield was sliced open ystdy anytime spurs were attacking, only ceballos was making meaning tackles and interception(which is why we need good technical and robust dm). Our midfield lacked creativity except also for ceballos who tried to string things (tho xhaka gave an important key pass to bellerin which he flounder). Which is why we need good AM. As for attack, the less said about it the better. Pepe who supposed to be our goto guy for creativity in attack had a very sub par day ystdy and have been underwhelming this season. Auba isn't creative neither is laca. That leaves our creativity in attack blunt as hell.
Once midfield and attack are shorn of creativity what do you expect our Cbs to do? Not alienating our cb tho, but the best form of defence is attack, and until we sort that then we can think of solving the cb issues. Let's take a cue out of klopps team. He first sorted attack and midfield, which yielded them top 4. Then he completed it with the defence which now won the league. And I think that's the best way to go about it.

Order of priority(my opinion)

DM
Wingers
AM
Cbs

Its not like we concede every minute, iOnly if our attackers killed games early. We score because of Auba.

This has been my stand, good ball players behind Auba from AM,LW and RW will take this team to 5th with this shitty defense.

Then later sort the defensive side.

PAL trio is overhyped
This is supposed to be the deadly forward, we struggle and allow teams group back. It’s all fantasizing that when they play together we’d be great.
It can even be debated that Saka has outperformed all of them this season. If Pepe can only boast of 8goals 8assist a whole season. Stat not so better than Iwobi's.

afrodoc:


The guy no want Ceballos but he is broken hearted over AMN.

That’s some real stuff there.

I just weak mehn.....una go dey talk say una want things to change still dey mention dead players

Fkhalifa:

Its not like we concede every minute, iOnly if our attackers killed games early. We score because of Auba.

This has been my stand, good ball players behind Auba from AM,LW and RW will take this team to 5th with this shitty defense.

Then later sort the defensive side.

Baba, I no agree with this one. So the other teams are supposed to just sit and watch you score abi, including the top teams? Your goals will not save you or guarantee you a W against top sides, i.e: Chelsea vs Sheffield. Our attack has to average 3 or more goals to get a W at this point, anything lower will end in tears (draw or loss).
A combination of the best attackers in the world can not even guarantee you an average of 3 goals per game worth more our own. We have gotten so used to mediocrity that it is now okay and normal to parade clowns as defenders in the EPL. No attacker will be motivated to stay aggressive when they constantly lose leads/ games because of clownish displays from our defenders.
Our defense is below average and that is a big difference when it comes to working with what you have.

Akinbahm:


Yeah, you've really watched the guy true true.

Kronke nah Mad owner, we suppose burnt am alive.

We all knew Kroenke was the problem, but we all also knew that Wenger was fronting for him and shielding him from fan rage by blatant lies (remember when he would tell us Arsenal had 100m transfer budget but that we found no quality player to buy) and getting rewarded by Kroenke by being made to have enormous power in the club and substantial salary.

We needed to get Wenger out to expose Kroenke.
Too bad it took the London fans too long to see that.

Now that Wenger is out, Kroenke is exposed for his lack of commitment in terms of investment on this club. FFP has been relaxed so Kroenke has no excuse not to back Arteta in this transfer market.
He needs to write an interest free loan to Arsenal, so that we can rebuild our backline and get in an attacking midfielder and a DM in the next two to three transfer windows.

If he doesn't do this, and we keep shopping from scraps, our descent to relegation fighting club from current midtable status will be insidious and only a matter of time before fans turn on Kroenke.

When opposing teams look at our line up, guess where everyone is focusing on? Our defense!!! They know we are parading clowns with self destruct buttons on their jerseys. Opponents know they just need to create scenarios where they hit the self destruct button. I can assure you that if we were the ones that scored in the 81st minute against Spuds, we would have conceded a last-minute goal to draw, or worse still lose the game, it is that bad.

We scored in the 16th minute, guess when we conceded? less than 3 minutes later!

Roland17:
I don’t care who you put in front as attackers/ midfielders, if the defense is abysmal and comical like ours, you can’t win games. You may have to score 3 or more in many instances to guarantee you a win and that is our situation. Our defense is the butt of joke in the EPL.
We desperately need to overhaul our CB roster, it is a joke to put kindly and has caused us so much pain and points. Also we need to buy players for the role they should be playing and stop cutting corners by converting players and having them take roles they are uncomfortable with. There are pieces in the midfield and attack that can keep us competitive if we have a decent defense.

Defense is our main issue.
Every team have moments of the match where the opposition are on the ascendancy, and hence need their defense to help keep them in the game until they wrestle control of the match back.
No matter how big a club you are, Madrid, Barca, Liverpool, Bayern, City, etc. Opponents will always have that moment they put you under pressure and carve chances.

Big teams have strong defenses to help them weather that storm and then slowly seize control of the game.

At Arsenal, once opponents put us under pressure or have good spells during a game we control, our substandard defenders would have a brain fart. By either gifting opponents cheap back pass, Pks, conceding goals from corners, etc.

We just can't defend. And until we sort that out, we are moving to no where.

When Pep came to City, guess what he did?

His first action was to Change the entire City backline including Hart the goal keeper.

Kolarov, Clichy, Sagna, Zabaleta, Hart, were all axed in one swoop.

Because the foundation of every title winning team is the defense, and at Arsenal, we have ignored defense for so long.

Ferguson broke the EPL transfer record to sign Ferdinand from Leeds to make sure he stays ahead of Arsenal, Klopp broke transfer record on Van Djik, Ole Gunner Splashed big on Maguire.
Arsenal and Arteta needs a top level defender to coordinate our backline. Until we do this, buying any midfielder, or striker will be waste of time.

Kolasinac, Mustafi, Holding, Sokratis Chambers need to go.
They are not good enough or not fit enough.

We must prioritize our defense this transfer window.
If we keep the back line solid. In Auba, Pepe, Laca, Saka, Martinelli, we have enough talent to win the likes of Sheffield consistently. And this should be enough to get us into top 4 again.

Fkhalifa:

The bolded is 75% of Arsenal's problem. Its a pity some of our fans are still hoping hoping and hoping.

The Alaye you did above is good, but not an unambitious club like Arsenal will listen to you until you put a threat to their profit.

Most fans are beginning to see Kroenke for the problem he is.
Since he came to this club, it's been a slow and painful demise for the club to the sorrow of all of us who loves this club.

I love this thread

It's common with one thing..... The lengthy post filled with wailings

vicenzo:


Defense is our main issue.
Every team have moments of the match where the opposition are on the ascendancy, and hence need their defense to help keep them in the game until they wrestle control of the match back.
No matter how big a club you are, Madrid, Barca, Liverpool, Bayern, City, etc. Opponents will always have that moment they put you under pressure and carve chances.

Big teams have strong defenses to help them weather that storm and then slowly cease control of the game.

At Arsenal, once opponents put us under pressure or have good spells during a game we control, our substandard defenders would have a brain fart. By either gifting opponents cheap back pass, Pks, conceding goals from corners, etc.

We just can't defend. And until we sort that out, we are moving to no where.

Let me start by saying welcome to the thread, not sure I have seen this handle before.

Most times, it's not even opponents putting us under pressure. Sometimes our players play into the hands of our opponents, the examples are numerous I have lost count. Do you remember the Watford game where Sokratis had a brain fart? I mean how much worse can it get? That example cost us 3 points! We scored 2 goals, a good defense should be able to see that out but of course, Luiz had to hack a player to make Sokratis's brain fart look easier on the eyes!

kokaneprodigy:

You can try to deny this but he was part of the problem.
I’ll cut a manager some slacks if I see he’s trapped and got no options to try out. Did Emery ever try a partnership of Xhaka and Ceb for some games other than rotating everyone else with Guen.

If Emery had stayed a lot of players would have left, Emery would play Willock, Guen, Xhaka Nketiah all in midfield while he had Ceb, Torreira glued to the bench and he kept doing it despite a poor run of result. See what Ceb is currently orchestrating in that midfield? But Emery felt Guen/Xhaka partnership was the best we could get.

If I feel we have better options on the bench for CB right now you think I will give Arteta a pat for sticking with Luiz and Mustafi despite their show of shame?

That’s the difference.

I was refering to Wenger not Emery. Emery was his problem. Wenger's was covering for the owners when they were the actual problem. The owners refused to invest, till today the best they could do was to turn our external loans to internal.

If any fan is hoping to see a >50m signing next season is dreaming. We are not going to finish any where to qualify for Europe next season, so no major signing should be expected. Unless Arteta does a Wengerseque signing- an unearthed gem, our hopes lies on our youths and academy.

Roland17:
I don’t care who you put in front as attackers/ midfielders, if the defense is abysmal and comical like ours, you can’t win games. You may have to score 3 or more in many instances to guarantee you a win and that is our situation. Our defense is the butt of joke in the EPL.
We desperately need to overhaul our CB roster, it is a joke to put kindly and has caused us so much pain and points. Also we need to buy players for the role they should be playing and stop cutting corners by converting players and having them take roles they are uncomfortable with. There are pieces in the midfield and attack that can keep us competitive if we have a decent defense.

Wailing wailer
Shalaye f.c

Roland17:


Baba, I no agree with this one. So the other teams are supposed to just sit and watch you score abi, including the top teams? Your goals will not save you or guarantee you a W against top sides, i.e: Chelsea vs Sheffield. Our attack has to average 3 or more goals to get a W at this point, anything lower will end in tears (draw or loss).
A combination of the best attackers in the world can not even guarantee you an average of 3 goals per game worth more our own. We have gotten so used to mediocrity that it is now okay and normal to parade clowns as defenders in the EPL. No attacker will be motivated to stay aggressive when they constantly lose leads/ games because of clownish displays from our defenders.
Our defense is below average and that is a big difference when it comes to working with what you have.

I get your point, and I'm not disputing the problems at the back. But if we can kill games off,put opposition on constant pressure as against the insipid pointless possession, we'll be close if not there yet.

Remember the game at city, we didn't concede till 45th minute, but we never looked like scoring all through, maybe its my eyes, we don't look threatening, you won't see dangerous crosses,shots,defense splitting passes, everything is just pass pass and pass.

See the game at wolves, we defended and got lucky not to concede, but going forward, we were slow,weak and dry, until Laca came on, and immediately we scored, everyone became energized.

If we buy the best defenders, I can assure you if the forwards are not making use of the ball effectively, opposition teams will put constant pressure and the world class defenders will look mediocre also.

We need to fix defense just as the attack. If I were to be coach, I'll focus on attack first as we don't concede or make errors every minute.

Roland17:


Let me start by saying welcome to the thread, not sure I have seen this handle before.

Most times, it's not even opponents putting us under pressure. Sometimes our players play into the hands of our opponents, the examples are numerous I have lost count. Do you remember the Watford game where Sokratis had a brain fart? I mean how much worse can it get? That example cost us 3 points! We scored 2 goals, a good defense should be able to see that out but of course, Luiz had to hack a player to make Sokratis's brain fart look easier on the eyes!

The issue with our defense cannot be over-emphasized. The problem is that it will be herculean to get any decent defender seeing that we are not qualifying for Europe, unless we want to pay astronomical salaries, something I will not sanction after seeing what Ozil is doing to us now.

The clowns in the team should be axed (its already nauseating that Luiz got an extention), those average ones like Mari, Holding, Chambers and Saliba should be allowed to play together so that they can at least form a partnership. The rest should just find their way out.

If some guys are still arguing over where the main problem is then e get as e be.

Aubameyang is a very good striker.
Lacazette is a decent striker.
Martinelli and Saka have shown great promise.

ALL YOUR CENTREBACKS ARE CLOWNS. None of them is serviceable. Merely looking at them makes most people laugh.

The attack can improve by them training together and maybe putting players in their proper positions in order to help them succeed.
The central defense needs a new set of players entirely. There is no bobo that Luiz and Mustafi can bobo anybody again.

Fkhalifa:

I get your point, and I'm not disputing the problems at the back. But if we can kill games off,put opposition on constant pressure as against the insipid pointless possession, we'll be close if not there yet.

Remember the game at city, we didn't concede till 45th minute, but we never looked like scoring all through, maybe its my eyes, we don't look threatening, you won't see dangerous crosses,shots,defense splitting passes, everything is just pass pass and pass.

See the game at wolves, we defended and got lucky not to concede, but going forward, we were slow,weak and dry, until Laca came on, and immediately we scored, everyone became energized.

If we buy the best defenders, I can assure you if the forwards are not making use of the ball effectively, opposition teams will put constant pressure and the world class defenders will look mediocre also.

We need to fix defense just as the attack. If I were to be coach, I'll focus on attack first as we don't concede or make errors every minute.

My brother for me our attack is ready for next season. But with this kind of defense, even Messi leg go weak to score goal mere looking at the clownish displays the defense put up at the back. The psychological torture alone can make the best attack to just wind down.

You can't have Auba on the wings and expect us to attack or defend effectively all day same as Pepe.

Sallah and Mane are always comfortable on the ball,causing your defense problems all day and that's why Arnold and Robertson can come forward to support with ease.

Unfortunately this team is full of cowards. When they receive the ball and an opponent is even 5 metres away, the default reaction is to just pass the ball to nearest man, (a case of Majeobaje lowomi)and rid themselves off of any pressure. Xhaka, and Kola are 2 very big culprits of that tiresome and needless backpassing.

Anybody saying we should sort defense is right and I agree, but its a matter of time we see the problems upfront.

Spy360:

My brother for me our attack is ready for next season. But with this kind of defense, even Messi leg go weak to score goal mere looking at the clownish displays the defense put up at the back. The psychological torture alone can make the best attack to just wind down.

OK nah.
But we kept clean sheet and didn't concede erratic goals since Luiz at city.

afrodoc2:
If some guys are still arguing over where the main problem is then e get as e be.

Aubameyang is a very good striker.
Lacazette is a decent striker.
Martinelli and Saka have shown great promise.

ALL YOUR CENTREBACKS ARE CLOWNS. None of them is serviceable. Merely looking at them makes most people laugh.

The attack can improve by them training together and maybe putting players in their proper positions in order to help them succeed.
The central defense needs a new set of players entirely. There is no bobo that Luiz and Mustafi can bobo anybody again.

I believe there are one or two that can be serviceable. We have Mari, he is average but looks like he has got potential. There is also Chambers, injury prone and average but he reads well, then Saliba.

Point is I don't see Oga Kroenke splashing cash for a CB, and even if he does I don't see any decent CB willing to join a Europeless club like ours.

Fkhalifa:

OK nah.
But we kept clean sheet and didn't concede erratic goals since Luiz at city.

Against who? Even then, we only have Martinez to thank for covering well for Leno.

Spy360:

The issue with our defense cannot be over-emphasized. The problem is that it will be herculean to get any decent defender seeing that we are not qualifying for Europe, unless we want to pay astronomical salaries, something I will not sanction after seeing what Ozil is doing to us now.

The clowns in the team should be axed (its already nauseating that Luiz got an extention), those average ones like Mari, Holding, Chambers and Saliba should be allowed to play together so that they can at least form a partnership. The rest should just find their way out.

There is a lot of misconception about buying good defenders. We all know we are not in any position to compete financially for any of the top names but that is why we pay scouts! I have said this several times, the same scouting system that discovered Martinelli, got Mari, groomed Saka and trained Martinez can be used to find good defenders. Mari is not too shabby, we have not seen Saliba in the EPL but he has looked decent every time he played for St Ettiene and Holding can grow if he gets the chance but when is the chance going to come when we are extending Luiz while parading Mustafi, Sokratis and now Bellerin? What are Holding, Chambers, Mari, and Saliba supposed to learn from those Agbaya clowns? I thought Arteta's ruthlessness would have started from transitioning the backline to the younger players but again, I understand his plight, Chambers is out injured.

I would rather play with the younger defenders at this point than continue to parade clowns who lack the discipline to hold themselves accountable.

Spy360:

Against who? Even then, we only have Martinez to thank for covering well for Leno.

I'm not covering their shits, but should our attack had buried 2 or more, Only Kola would be chopping blame by now.

Let just throw the entire team away.

Bar man another Budweiser I can not kill myself

Fkhalifa:

I get your point, and I'm not disputing the problems at the back. But if we can kill games off,put opposition on constant pressure as against the insipid pointless possession, we'll be close if not there yet.

Remember the game at city, we didn't concede till 45th minute, but we never looked like scoring all through, maybe its my eyes, we don't look threatening, you won't see dangerous crosses,shots,defense splitting passes, everything is just pass pass and pass.

See the game at wolves, we defended and got lucky not to concede, but going forward, we were slow,weak and dry, until Laca came on, and immediately we scored, everyone became energized.

If we buy the best defenders, I can assure you if the forwards are not making use of the ball effectively, opposition teams will put constant pressure and the world class defenders will look mediocre also.

We need to fix defense just as the attack. If I were to be coach, I'll focus on attack first as we don't concede or make errors every minute.

You can't kill games off if your defense continues to sabotage your efforts! The example of City is not a fair one because they have more quality than we do. Use games against Brighton, Watford, and Spuds as examples. We were heading to a W, the attack had done everything but we ended up losing those games because our defense hit the self destruct button. If you can not get points against a smaller team, why should you anticipate results against the top teams? We conceded against City because of Luiz's brain fart and that killed any fight we could have mustered for that game. City did not need any more motivation but we gifted them more and more!

Fkhalifa:
You can't have Auba on the wings and expect us to attack or defend effectively all day same as Pepe.

Sallah and Mane are always comfortable on the ball,causing your defense problems all day and that's why Arnold and Robertson can come forward to support with ease.

Unfortunately this team is full of cowards. When they receive the ball and an opponent is even 5 metres away, the default reaction is to just pass the ball to nearest man, (a case of Majeobaje lowomi)and rid themselves off of any pressure. Xhaka, and Kola are 2 very big culprits of that tiresome and needless backpassing.

Anybody saying we should sort defense is right and I agree, but its a matter of time we see the problems upfront.

Normally you need only three decent forward players in your team and then two others as backup.

We have Auba, Laca, Pepe and then Saka, Martinelli. There is still room for improvement, but I tell you we are above average. Compare this with sides like Chelsea, Sheffield, Wolves, Leicester, even Man Utd, there is not much difference. These other sides have better defense than us and that's the key. Do you know how many games we have drawn or lost from winning positions? It's a league high.

Roland17:


There is a lot of misconception about buying good defenders. We all know we are not in any position to compete financially for any of the top names but that is why we pay scouts! I have said this several times, the same scouting system that discovered Martinelli, got Mari, groomed Saka and trained Martinez can be used to find good defenders. Mari is not too shabby, we have not seen Saliba in the EPL but he has looked decent every time he played for St Ettiene and Holding can grow if he gets the chance but when is the chance going to come when we are extending Luiz while parading Mustafi, Sokratis and now Bellerin? What are Holding, Chambers, Mari, and Saliba supposed to learn from those Agbaya clowns? I thought Arteta's ruthlessness would have started from transitioning the backline to the younger players but again, I understand his plight, Chambers is out injured.

I would rather play with the younger defenders at this point than continue to parade clowns who lack the discipline to hold themselves accountable.

Big Points.

Luiz's extention is nothing but disastrous. What ever informed the decision. Right now I am looking at next season and paraying that Mari and Saliba turn good while Chambers and Holding stay out of hospital and be the backups or compete if they can. As for the Ndi Aparis, my prayer is for any club to come and carry them away even for free.

Spy360:

Big Points.

Luiz's extention is nothing but disastrous. What ever informed the decision. Right now I am looking at next season and paraying that Mari and Saliba turn good while Chambers and Holding stay out of hospital and be the backups or compete if they can. As for the Ndi Aparis, my prayer is for any club to come and carry them away even for free.

100% in agreement with you about the CB combination, it can not get worse than what we are parading! I am fine with Mari, Saliba, Chambers, Holding, and any decent CB out there we can get to compete for places. Mavro did excellently well with Nurnberg, in the worst case we bring him back if we can't get anything decent in the market.