Arsenal have never recovered from ‘very insecure’ Arteta’s expensive Aubameyang mistake

Arsenal are afraid to take ‘risks’ in the transfer market and ‘very insecure’ Mikel Arteta is to blame. They hit that Martin Odegaard deal almost too well.

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Liverpool could get destroyed by Forest
For the second game running Liverpool’s 2024 form went to their heads and they put in a stinker of a performance (again). Newsflash: that 2024 sheen won’t win you anything in 2025. Wake up. Never mind whether Bergvall should’ve been on the pitch to score a winner, look within yourselves lads.

Awful performance, awful start to the year, a dead stop to the momentum. We made a pair of mediocre mid-table stragglers look the business two matches in succession. We’ll be eviscerated away to Forest if we don’t pick it up from here. In fact we might have our milkshakes pissed in by Accrington at the weekend by this measure.

This was football of the absolute lowest quality. Utter shite from both sides really. But for us, relinquish any thoughts of titles or silverware for now. Instead, remove heads from asses, regroup, and just get through January for Christ’s sake. The first true examination for Slot as Liverpool manager is this next fortnight.
Eric, Los Angeles CA

An argument for paying them…
I understand Aman’s point about Salah and VVD maybe going off a cliff performance-wise, but let’s say we give him a 3 year extension, ie until the end of 27/28

Given his status as the leading Arab footballer (of all time?) and a globally recognised figure would anyone seriously think that Liverpool wouldn’t be able to get offers for him from Saudi or PSG if he started to not work out? Even if we didn’t, and he drops his performance for the last 18 months of his contract, having him for the next two years would be worth it.

VVD might be a different story, but if Thiago Silva could keep going at his level, then I’d believe he’s worth the risk. Given the amount we’ve saved on contracts in the last few years (Thiago, Matip, Henderson, Milner, Mane, Firmino and Fab were all on 100k plus) we should be able to accommodate.

I’d also argue that it’s slightly different than the Casemiro situation – he was someone who Real were looking to move on from being signed by a side that were in a desperate spot, so overpaid. The club have all of the relevant data on our players, so will be able to make an informed decision.

TLDR – pay them. We’d be able to sell at least Mo if they don’t work out.
Tom, Andover

Credit to Eddie
I am still trying to come to terms with the fact that we have won seven on the bounce and Tuesday night’s game was amazing, if unexpected!!

We were brilliant and have been excellent for the last few weeks. It has been a rocky road and throughout all of this Eddie Howe gets a lot of scrutiny with many (even a tiny minority of our fans!) thinking he can’t be trusted to take us further. Throughout all of the highs and lows he maintains a professional and dignified stance, he never gets carried away when its going well and he never overly whinges when its going bad (Arteta could learn a lot from this!).

He is clearly an excellent coach, Lewis Hall has turned into a potential England starter and is easily one of our players of the season. When Tonali first came into the team following his ban he looked like a square peg in a round hole, clearly an excellent player but I was thinking maybe the Premier League wasn’t for him.

A slight tweak by Eddie and he is now part of arguably the best midfield three in the league, which includes a powerhouse of a player in Big Joe bought for £40m deemed a flop and played out of position by Bruce, thank god for Eddie (oh and special mention to Ciaran Clark for getting sent off against Norwich to start the revolution).

When all the world loses their heads about Isak being the best in the business at the moment, Eddie focuses on how he can help make him better and keeping him grounded, although that doesn’t seem to be an issue as he seems a great team player. Gordon is reaching his potential and Eddie has transformed Jacob Murphy.

He trusts his players and backs them when others are crying out for replacements, Longstaff is a great example of a trusted player who gets a lot of flak but plays a vital role in doing the hard yards to get us over the line. Team spirit is there in abundance and we are loving it at the moment, I hope we get to Wembley again but for all the fall out from Tuesday night, Arsenal are still in this tie and can easily turn up and cause us problems…provided they get to practice with those balls.

We are in a good place and hopefully we can build on our current position and finish the season strong, if we do end up winning something the place will go mental.

There are some honourable contenders for manager of the year but based on current form it really should be a three way battle between Slot, Nuno and Howe.
Steve. NUFC

(Eddie Howe is actually a massive climber in our Premier League manager rankings of the season – Ed)

Remember when it was embarrassing to lose to Man City…
The piece on players’ goals leading to managers getting whacked is great.

I remember the good old days when managers would get sacked fairly regularly after playing Man City because we were so crap that getting beaten by us was just too humiliating to let go.

I seem to remember that in the 90s failure defeat to Plymouth often led to a manager’s demise as well. That one’s fair enough though.
Cal Loftus

Arteta’s next excuses
As a keen follower of football excuses it was most entertaining to hear Arteta’s narrative-defining whinge about the balls. Jurgen once famously blamed the wind I think, so Arteta isn’t doing anything new, and I firmly expect his horizon for excuses to move forward to encompass the following before too long:

Referees finally start fairly penalising the blocking / impeding of goalies and defenders for every Arsenal attacking set piece, and every game becomes a forfeit loss due to not having enough players – it’s a massive conspiracy

The stress of being expected to score goals from open play, rather than delegating the responsibility to the corner coach

Havertz’ eyes must have been full of ash – only way he misses that header is with his eyes shut, as called out by Sir Les

Arteta’s lego haircut getting stuck to the roof of his cyber truck

His ongoing training for how to interact with humans without being weirdly overly intense and joyless – aka “make people want to have a pint with you down the pub” is dulling his edge

The white line around his technical area is a Gen Z style affront to his freedoms

Too many facts at the expense of lies (sorry, I mean free speech) on the internet – keep fighting the good fight tech bros!

Arsenal’s focus on over-celebrating defensive blocks has made them think they have won the game before remembering to actually score

Spurs scoring more goals than Arsenal, for the lulz

Stewie camping in Arteta’s front garden to fire every single laughing emoji, including new ones dynamically generated by AI, into his bedroom at night with a laser pen
Gofezo (VAR says Michael Thomas was offside)

Stop taking the Stewie bait
Stewie Griffin is the f365 equivalent of GB News. He writes poorly prepared, consistently contradictory diatribes designed to enflame Arsenal supporters. He’s the equivalent of a drunk spouting nonsense in the pub. As long as people acknowledge it and respond to it he won’t stop.

This is, I presume, a grown man using emojis and his sobriquet should tell you everything that you need to know about the kind of person that you’re dealing with. I’m begging Arsenal supporters to please stop responding to his nonsense and treat it like the insane ramblings of a madman that you all know it is and he may just give up.

Most of the football fans that I know, whichever teams they support, are reasonable people who don’t believe in conspiracy theories, don’t care about transfer fees/net spend etc and will continue to ‘support’ (it’s a very important word) their teams, regardless of trophy success, because they know that football is only a game and it’s the game that they love. Don’t lose your minds over things you can do nothing to change.

Happy New Year to all who enjoy this wonderful website (Yes, even you, Stewie).
Dave AFC

Some lengthy Mikel Arteta thoughts
Heads up, here comes another Arsenal fan with an opinion. I’ve been supporting Arsenal since a while back, probably longer than poor Stewie, who strikes me as one of those plastic, bandwagon fans who needs to follow a winner for the sake of his ego, and who from his perpetual bitterness I can only assume got on board the Arsenal train in the wake of their invincible season and has been sulking with buyer’s remorse ever since. But enough about him.

I’ve been very much on the fence with MA ever since he was appointed. I was a fan of Emery, but sadly, his poor English at the time allowed him to be painted by the media as some sort of laughingstock, and the fans were still restless from the turmoil of the Wenger Out/AFTV period, which I think contributed to his premature ouster.

One of the main issues I have in this new MA era is with recruitment. In my opinion it is and has been a problem and is one that I think MA has massively contributed to with his early day antics.

From day one, MA came across as an intense yet very insecure leader, and I think his insecurity led to him making some very costly mistakes for the sake of establishing his authority, and those actions have scarred the board and left the whole club extremely cautious and hesitant when it comes to player recruitment.

While at the time many were lauding MA’s sidelining of Auba and Ozil as setting new standards, to me it reeked of a small man in his first big job, doubting his own authority, who is tense and unable to relax in the knowledge that he knows what he’s doing. So, like the scared new prison inmate he decided to pick a fight with the biggest guy around to try and impress the yard.

Auba was our most expensive signing at the time as had been Ozil not that long before. MA’s freezing out of those two premier signings cost the club millions in wages and in lost sell-on value, and while the board backed MA as the manager, which was only right, I believe the experience has left the higher ups unprepared to take any risks in the market for fear of having another stranded asset on their books. This and the unreal try-before-you-buy deal we managed to get for one of Europe’s top prospects in Odegaard left the board looking for pie in the sky opportunities, rather than stepping up to the reality of the transfer market, which in this day and age means you either have to gamble on relatively cheaper, unknowns at lower prices, or else you wait for a Brighton, or a West Ham, etc, to sign them for sane money and try them out in the EPL, after which, if they come good you have to pay the astronomical fees demanded.

My main issue with us is that we’re not prepared to either scout for talent or buy established stars. The Rice deal aside, we won’t pay the sky-high fees demanded for a proven talent, like a Caicedo, or a Toon Isak, but neither will we take a punt on those same players before they are tested in the EPL. The only type of deals our board seems ready to sign off on are for any players MA has already worked with, or players who the other big teams don’t want, in which case we’ll pay any stupid amount of wages and fees to get, such as Jesus, Zinny and Havertz. This particular quirk reinforces my belief that our board’s reticence in the market is a direct consequence of MA’s previous behaviour.

We have to consider from an owner’s perspective how badly they must have been burned by MA’s early day antics and all the $$ he cost the club (and them). Remember we are owned by USA capitalists who were perfectly happy to have us perpetually finish 4th getting UCL footy every year (as Wenger had done for most of his reign), raking in a tidy annual profit for them. It was only after much fan unrest that our owners stepped up and put their hands in their pockets for Auba, just to have MA throw him away.

The club now doesn’t know what it wants in the transfer market under MA and co. We don’t want potential, and we aren’t prepared to pay for proven, so all we end up with is average – the likes of Trossard, or Merino, Havertz, Jesus, and increasingly Martinelli. It’s almost like MA is assembling a team of water carriers, such as he was in his playing career. It’s for this reason that I never approach transfer windows with any real hope. Even though we struggle to break down sides when Saka or Odegaard are not available or not at their best, and it’s clear to anyone with eyes that we need more dangerous players in our attack all we’re ever doing is signing goalkeepers (then selling or letting them go – after letting one of the best in the world leave us, all for having more attitude than MA could handle).

IDK, I’ve never been a massive fan of MA, but I’ve had to accept that under him we’ve become more solid defensively, and we’re back in Europe and nearer the top of the table, so I’ve not been vocally against him, so far. I’m still not sure, however, that he is the person who will get us over the line in the league, or in any other trophy for that matter. Earlier this season I had told a fellow arsenal fan, one who is a fervent MA fanboy (they do exist), that if MA didn’t win us a cup at least this year that I’d put him on notice. He’s not the only young up and coming manager around. Personally, I’d be prepared to take a punt on Iraola, or even Thomas Frank. At least they both set up their teams to attack and are part of management teams who are prepared to gamble a bit in the market for the sake of unearthing a gem.

Anyhoo, this has gone on too long already. If this does end up getting published, my apologies to anyone who reads it. Still hoping that maybe I’ll be surprised and something good happens in this window (not holding my breath, tho).
Rob, AFC

READ MORE: Arsenal misery caused by Mikel Arteta negativity, Bukayo Saka injury and set-pieces

Pride comes after a fall
After reading Eric’s email about his inability to understand why players dive and feign injury in order to gain a slight advantage while making themselves look a tit, it seems like wilful ignorance more than anything.

In the lower levels of football it’s very easy to take pride in not diving when the result of your diving is promptly being told to f*ck off. The answer to the question “Is it worth looking like an idiot for a slight advantage?” is simply yes. If you can win a penalty in as competitive a league as the Premier League by diving at the slightest of touches, why wouldn’t you?

It’s no coincidence that this bending of the rules occurs in literally every high level sport on the planet, it just so happens football’s version involves a fair amount of acting.

Watch the highlights of James Harden’s reign of terror in the NBA, he consistently trapped opponents arms to make it look as if they were fouling him, and would collect two free throws and win games as a result. Or when an NFL quarterback fakes a snap to draw the defense into a false start and win a cheap penalty to move upfield. These moves don’t convey any sense of superiority in skill or physicality, maybe mentally (at a push), but are effective and win games, all that matters.

Even in sports that pride themselves in their ‘spirit of the game’ culture have the same antics. Look no further than the last Ashes series as Jonny Bairstow was so controversially sent out by the Australians interpretation of the spirit of the game, despite Bairstow having done an awfully similar thing in his career himself. As an Irish rugby fan I’m filled with joy as I watch Andrew Porter line up for a scrum and blatantly turn 45 degrees into the hooker. Pretending you didn’t get the last touch or didn’t just punch someone in the gut even goes on in the GAA, without money even being on the line FFS.

I agree diving and feigning injury shouldn’t be a part of the game, but it has to be on the shoulders of those who decide rules and officiate the games, not those who are trying to win at all costs. Ultimately, if you win you win, England are champions of the 1966 world cup, despite the fact one of those goals definitely did not cross the line, and nobody challenges their victory (except maybe us Irish).

Do you think any Liverpool fan has qualms about Dudek being almost as close to Shevchenko as he was to the goal line for that penalty? I certainly don’t. It would be nice for all games to be won entirely on merit and within the spirit of the game, but it absolutely isn’t a stain on the players’ “pride” when they win.
Cillian, Greece