Does Arsenal’s ‘sh*tshow of a season’ prove project has ‘come and gone’?
Arsenal once again dropped points against Crystal Palace; have we seen the end of a project? And Stewie will drink his own p*** if they win the Champions League.
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This Arsenal project has run its course
Two years ago, Arsenal charged into the title race, led for an age, and then dropped the ball with the finishing line in sight.
Last year, they managed the race better, taking the lead late on – only to drop the ball again with the finishing line in sight.
This season, they’ve huffed and puffed and fended off the rest, but never really threatened from second once they got there.
The window for a squad’s success is usually quite small – three or four seasons max – before significant upgrades or changes are required, even if you tinker along the way. The number of draws this season, irrespective of “we don’t have a CF” and “injuries”, indicates that this squad’s time may have come and gone. They are not improving and don’t have the trophies to prove otherwise.
From where I’m sitting, Arsenal need three forwards (upgrades on Saka, Jesus, and Martinelli) and two midfielders (upgrades on Jorginho and Partey – who has been very good this year) to remain title-race relevant next year.
This is a very hard thing to do.
Ignatius J. Reilly, Esq (Making a fine cheese dip for Sunday afternoon)
READ: Arsenal have 18-point Premier League regret but £32.5m January calls pay off handsomely
Here’s your Stewie trigger warning…
Does this now make Palace a better team than Real Madrid? 🤔. Thirteen draws this season for Arteta! Thirteen. Wow, that’s 26 points dropped in a series of eminently winnable matches that a so-called “Elite” side would be expected to take at least 25 points from. Arsenal have just 13! Pretty pathetic. Must be PGMOL Radical Antifa Woke DEI etc.
Does that sound by any objective measure, like a team that’s “progressing”?
Last season Arsenal finished the season with 91 goals scored. They won’t get near 75 this season. The attacking output is substantially worse.
Last season on the defensive side, Arsenal conceded 29 goals all season. This season, they’ve already matched that total (29) with still 4 matchdays to go. Again: clear regression.
Last season Arsenal played more dynamic football and won 28 matches. They have won a paltry 18 this season!
Arsenal’s goal difference last season was identical to Pep’s unstoppable Citeh, at 62. This season it’s a laughable 34. Just over half of last season’s total.
Funny thing is, if you perform the exact same exercise with Liverpool, the reverse happens: Liverpool improve in almost every key metric. More wins, better defence, better GD. A clear and obvious improvement by a manager that hasn’t had 10 transfer windows, and over £700m.
Or does that entire 12 months of evidence simply get conveniently discarded after the “Arsenal beat Real Madrid” trophy was secured? The league is the barometer, and Arsenal have been magnificently mediocre, all season. The regression is a matter of fact, made all the more inept given the gargantuan sums of cash spent. Odegaard currently plays like a Fake Sergei Rebrov tribute act, Casper the Ghost would have more presence. Someone needs the dunce hat in the absence of the Ashtray, I guess!
Arsenal fans might be crying about Steve McManaman’s analysis post-Madrid but only because he’s spot on: Arsenal’s sh*tshow of a season (breezed by a first season Slot who spent almost nothing, dumped out of the FA Cup by Amorim’s Travelling Circus, schooled as usual by Newcastle in the League cup) isn’t negated by 180 minutes against an underperforming Madrid side.
The fact is, anything short of winning the CL (and Arsenal ain’t winning it in a month of Sundays, I’ll livestream me drinking a pint of my own p**s if they do), and Arsenal’s season would have been a duplicate of Arteta’s previous five: a categorical trophyless Failure. Although bien sur, Arsenal fans will “rationally” foam at the mouth at any such suggestion.
Stewie Griffin (Mbappe ain’t getting in the current Palace team 🤣)
Did Emery cock it a bit?
That was rather annoying. Not just because of the last-minute winner. I really felt City were there to be got at, and it felt like Emery was looking for a European away leg performance. I’m not sure the draw would have done that much for Villa. Okay, it takes two points off City, but still. With the pace and power Villa have, City could have been caused trouble – and were at various points.
What has Watkins done? Why isn’t he starting? Especially after being excellent on Saturday. Also, come on, we’ve seen that Disasi error before. He can’t play RB. He isn’t a RB. I watched him play CB v Ipswich and he was decent. Stop playing him RB. Unai looked incredibly frustrated at the end. I hope a small part of that was in himself. Still love him, mind.
Think Villa might need to win the last four now to stand a chance, and even that might not be enough. I’m sure there’ll be the odd shock and a few twists and turns but that goal felt a punch in the gut.
Gary AVFC, Oxford
…So that’s probably it for Villa in the Champions League again next year. Had Chelsea not turned the game around v Fulham, or if Spurs had turned up against Forest, maybe things would still be in play.
But really, Villa had too much left to do – we needed 9 points from 9 against Forest, Newcastle and City (or 18 from 18, in 6-pointer language), and we’ve fallen short. A point last night might have been ok if we could rely on a favour elsewhere in the remaining games, but really we’ve only got ourselves to blame for letting that go as well.
Two damning statistics for Villa won’t go away this season, both of which were added to last night: in 52 games, Villa have conceded from the first shot on target (either directly or via a rebound) 24 times. Once you write off games where the opposition shouldn’t score at all – eg Young Boys, Preston, Southampton, Man Utd, Cardiff, etc – we’re basically going into more than half of the serious games with a 0-1 deficit.
And then goals conceded in stoppage time: 8, second only to Southampton. We’ve dropped 4 points because of these, which would come in very handy now, and also given Forest and City 2 points each in that period.
If you want a symbol of how bad our defence has been, we conceded *in both games* against Leicester. So what’s the problem? Disasi is getting a lot of flak at the moment, but he’s not a right back. On the other side Digne ‘lost his man’ last night apparently, but as a back post full back, you can’t just hang around outside the box in case a cross misses everyone, you have to cover the goal. People who don’t watch Villa are determined to dislike him for some reason, but he’s been one of our best players since Emery took over.
The real problems are Villa’s sacred cows. Konsa’s schtick of, I’m smart and quick and good on the ball, so I’m just going to stand up, not go to ground, and you have to beat me, is fine 90% of the time. But as PSG and City both showed, when players are happy competing on those terms he doesn’t have any more to bring to the party. Thomas Tuchel needs to be aware of this.
Torres is very much an Emery favourite, but he’s just a tall Michael Carrick. Good at passing and looking a bit vacant, but he doesn’t do any actual defending. The uptick in performances when Mings was back in the team was stark, not to mention the novelty of someone other than Onana who can head the damn ball. BLM-advocate Tyrone Mings does get a lot more criticism than anyone else for some reason or other, but he remains our best defender.
But most of all, and unfortunately we’re all basically starting to come round to it now, is that Martinez is past it. Since his new contract, he’s turned up periodically in European games, but very rarely in the Premier League. He’s not necessarily making the howlers the media is desperate for, but he’s just not really doing anything.
Anyway that’s enough moaning now. UTV.
Neil Raines
Man City fans retaliate
Patrick Dalton, AFC: If anyone would know about ‘celebrating like they won the league’ it’d be a Tarquin. You never learn. You do it every year. And then end up crashing and burning. Bruv.
How much does it hurt that – even a year when City have to scrap just to eke out a CL spot – your team of premature celebrators are still 13 points off the leaders?
Oh, and even if you win the CL (which I hope you don’t due to the majority of your fans being un-f*cking-bearable) before running your mouth, please remember that we did it in a year when we also had to contend with putting out strong sides to be able to win the PL & the FA Cup.
The PL & another trophy is the new reference level, and you’re nowhere near it. Blud (is that how you spell it ?).
Calv From The Frog (Manc exiled in Paris)
…Look, Liverpool’s achievement is fine but what I’m saying is when we won the league for the 2nd then 3rd then 4th time it created so much hatred and passion and stuff we all enjoyed it really. Liverpool’s – admittedly fine – canter to the title is going to create a few polite claps for a day or two then be forgotten by everyone.
The billions of words of bile directed at my beloved City are way more fun than the handful of “Liverpool were very good this season well done” letters that we’ll all have to endure for those couple of days next week. And you know it.
Cal Loftus
Neil was talking bollocks…
Neil from the USA — as a Liverpool fan, I should be cheering you on. But I can’t help thinking you’ve forgotten the not-so-glorious days when we finished 4th, miles behind the actual champions, and still needed that Champions League spot to stay relevant.
Were we “champions” then? Not even close. But those campaigns kept us afloat and gave us nights to remember — even in the darkest eras of you-know-who.
Football has changed. The current format reflects the actual power balance in Europe. A team finishing 5th in La Liga isn’t some joke — they’ve played 38 games in a league stacked with talent. That means something.
Let’s not rewrite history with rose-tinted glasses. The Champions League may be a branding lie, but it’s still the best football tournament on the planet.
And Neil, — maybe stick to soccer if you want leagues where only the winners matter.
Michael, a Liverpool fan who remembers finishing 7th
…Can I be the 10,000th person to point out to Neil that Liverpool weren’t champions the year they won the CL in Istanbul? Facepalm
Also meant to write in re the article about what signing each clubs need, and Man U needing a CM over a striker? Really?
Mike Bean
…Well, if United qualify for the Champions League it will be as Champions (albeit of Europa), so I’m not worried about Neil and his CL entry police.
Funny though, because how many times would Liverpool have won it if we didn’t have 4 places a year. When was the last time they won it as league winners?
Badwolf (The answer, btw, is 1984… which seems very apt)
US coverage is so poor
US viewer here. We get a lot of those ‘coverage will resume shortly’ notices here as well. No idea about the UK market, but I find the frequent lack of advertising here in the US to be rather surprising seeing as EPL viewing is on the rise (from 414m viewers in 2021 to 546m in 2024). So why are we also seeing the same issue of no advertising? My theory is that it’s down to the quality of the production/punditry.
We have to suffer the godawful, insane, screeching chatter of Jamie Carragher and Micah “Big Meeks” Richards. Sure, there’s Thierry Henry alongside them, somebody who has the potential to be an insightful pundit but is unfortunately reduced to playing the “sensible head” alongside these jokers”. Their so-called analysis is, for me at least, so amateurish and unprofessional that I’d rather flip over to any other channel than spend 15 mins watching these braying hyenas.
I think it was the Madrid V Arsenal game where minutes of the post-game analysis was spend “joking” about Richards being late back from a trip to the jacks due to chicken wings he ate earlier, cue the “big lad” walking back on stage to much “banter”. IIRC the show ended with Jamie talking about what food he might bring for the semi.
We might have record viewing figures, but nobody wants to sit through even a brief minute of these asshats. If other viewers are like me, they flip the channel as soon as the whistle blows for half or full. I’m guessing advertisers have much more data around viewing figures these days seeing as everything is delivered digitally, prob more value to be derived from spending those dollars on advertising that actually gets seen by the prospective customer (on-pitch, collabs, etc)
The NFL doesn’t have this problem and continues to see increased advertising records YoY. I guess the difference is the viewers would rather switch the channel than have to risk hearing about Jamie Carragher’s farts or Micah Richards bowel movements. FWIW, I have no problem with ads and i’d be happy to let them play while i make a cuppa, but not at the risk of having to listen to these utter asshats.
Hoping you don’t have to put up with this shite in the UK!
Mark, Seattle
Secret to survival?
Just read your article about how promoted clubs can survive in the Premier League.
Not signing Aaron Ramsdale must be the first step.
James Clarke, Dundalk