mayubeproud

Wenger is Arsenal's most successful manager in history for sure, but his tactics and management style clearly became outdated by 2010s. Arsenal didn't became rich overnight in recent years I believe, but they have progressed and are challenging again after changes in their club's culture. Man City also spent their last 15 years fighting for survival (with quite a few seasons in Championship and even League One) before a change in ownership. We can't always give ourselves so many excuses, especially when we don't have the financial power of Big 6 yet. That the only way to close the gap is by working harder. If we can't buy the world class players, make them work hard to become world class players.

Indeed I think the culture inside the club need to be upgraded that mediocrity shouldn't be tolerated. Arsenal under Wenger's final years was an example. For years their club's hierarchy had a culture of finishing 4th or winning the domestic cups here and there is good enough. They used to blame rivals like Man Utd or Chelsea of splashing money to justify their mediocrity. Their manager made comments like '4th is a trophy' publicly. For more than a decade there was a feeling that Arsenal is a club in decline. If we look at ourselves, I think there is a worrying parallel between us and that Arsenal side. That we are so used to blame on PSR to justify every failure. Being too satisfied about winning a domestic cup despite several long periods of bad performances in the league. Or being happy about just lucky enough to get a place in CL. Most of the top players in top clubs earned their position there not only because they are talented, but they are serious and hard working. If we don't have that mentality and allow mediocrity, we won't be a top club. Chelsea and Man City got the rich ownership for sure, but they also got the likes of Mourinho and Mancini who demanded winning during their evolution.

Money is a factor but I think that is overstated. Liverpool under Klopp for example, especially during the early years, didn't spend that much and they were title contenders almost every year. They did splash on Van Dijk and Alisson when needed, but that was partially funded by the sale of Coutinho.

It's hard to name any current/former player that has improved since 2024 though. Except Hall and Miley but age likely plays a bigger factor than coaching for the duo. All the others have either stagnated or even receded (tbf for some cases like Trippier and Wilson, age is the more likely factor than coaching). Agree that Eddie tends to do well when he could spend a lot of time to focus on a single game (e.g. against Liverpool in the cup final). But a game every 3-4 days is the norm if our aspiration is European football every season. So he has to find ways to work well under tight time constraints. I actually felt quite concerned about this last season despite the cup victory. Since we won the first leg against Arsenal and knew that another cup final is a real possibility, we just seemed uninterested in any other competitions for 2 months (which included 4 loses in 8 PL games, heavy defeats to Bournemouth and Man City, narrowly escaping the embarrassment of another FA Cup exit against a League One side in Birmingham, and out of the FA Cup anyway when we met the first half decent opponent at home against Brighton). I don't really like the mentality of 'hey we could do very well in one competition, so losing in other competitions is okay for the next 2 months' especially when we didn't even have European football last season.

Has the vibe of Arsene Wenger's final years as a manager imho

Am I the only one who feel a bit mixed about his injury? I do enjoy watching him playing like sh*t and he's likely to remain sh*t for them injured or not. Sadly no more comedy from the rat this season.

Despite having just returned from injury, he has scored only 1 less goal than Isak this season.

A viable explanation if someone buys into that theory: some players are unwilling to give 100% for every game of the season, but they are okay about giving their best in a few selected crucial games. Again I'm not an insider so that is just one of the many possibilities.

Like what I said a few minutes ago, the way we play now is very different from Eddie's first 24 months in charge. I always wonder about the reason. Why did it happen? What could be done? There could be a few possibilities. Theory 1: Eddie's tactics is flawed in the first place. Effective in the short term but players get injured frequently and the style cannot be sustained in the long run. That's the worst possible case. Theory 2: Eddie's tactics is fine, but some of our players think that they have done enough after qualifying for CL in 2022/23, not willing to give their 100% in every game anymore, so we can't implement Eddie's philosophy consistently. In that case, get rid of those players and get somebody who are willing to implement Eddie's philosophy. Theory 3: Eddie's tactics is fine initially, but other teams had found a way to counter his tactics now, and we have yet to find a consistent way to win games. Then try to do something to inject some new ideas? As an outsider, I think I can observe the problem, but someone inside should do some careful investigation to find the root cause and solve the problem.

Could be an unpopular opinion, but I think a huge part (certainly not all) of Eddie's credit is due to his brilliant first 24 months, where he saved us from relegation, guided us to CL and the first cup final in decades, won 4-1 against PSG, improved a number of players and transformed our playing style. But that period of brilliance seem to be due to his tactics that worked initially but proved to be unsustainable in the long term. The way we play now is nowhere similar to that 24 months. Emotionally, that 24 months will always be remembered; but rationally, I think those 24 months is completely irrelevant if we evaluate Eddie's performance now. Since Nov/Dec 2023, we've been very inconsistent. If someone asks me to describe our style of play today, or what are we good at, frankly, I don't have an answer. We don't press very effectively. We don't keep possession very effectively. We don't defend very effectively. It seems that everyone is a bit clueless about what could be done so that we could win games consistently. Although we won our first trophy in decades and qualified for CL again last season, there's always a feeling that we're quite shaky for most of that season. To be fair, I have to give credit to Eddie because he did deliver the results in the most crucial games. But rationally, I'm always quite cautious about being optimistic because we never seem to have a formula that makes us winning games after games. The problem continues through this season. Looking forward, I don't think I am smart enough to give any solutions to solve the problems though, otherwise I will be the one earning millions every year. But I think I can see there's a rather big problem that Eddie is struggling to solve for 24 months and point it out, and something needs to be transformed (I don't suggest sacking Eddie is the right answer, it could also be doing something that helps Eddie to solve the problems).

Many players get injured for 2,3,4 months and then return to form quickly. This rat missed training for 2 months and 3 more months later he is still sh*t.

That's why he only returns just ahead of AFCON, so we can make sure that he won't be called up

My conspiracy theory: His return is delayed intentionally so he won't play in AFCON. Howe would want him to play in our system with more continuity. I think we would also get more compensation from FIFA.

I feel the opposite. I think I suffer more from 90 minutes of sh*t football, consistently being outplayed by our opponents, feeling like the team has ran out of ideas with no tactics at all. Conceding a last minute goal like this is frustrating, but at least I can still be reasonably optimistic about our way of play.

He started only 4 games this season so the sample size is obviously small, but we look more confident with our build up play and more dominant overall in those games. I would still prefer him over Pope, at least for the moment. We got 2 average keepers so we need to buy a better one.

Our Geordie Beckham?

I think we had exactly the same problem last season, but last season was considered a success due to a combination of the following factors: 1. We gambled on preserving our energy for the Carabao Cup and it paid off. 2. We were somewhat lucky in the PL where we got a few more points than the xG table suggests. 3. There was an extra place to qualify for UCL. We haven't found any idea other than pressing our opponents to win games, but for some physical and/or mental reasons we are not able to maintain our intensity consistently anymore, which in turn makes our performance very inconsistent.

I do think xG provides some meaningful insights. I think we are not performing as bad as the current table suggests. Yes, we were poor against West Ham and Brentford, but I do feel like all the 3 games we won are fully deserved. In several games that we drew or lost (e.g. vs Villa, Liverpool, Brighton), there is a feeling that we deserved a better outcome based on our performance, which is also confirmed by xG. Indeed I also think last season wasn't as great as our achievements suggests. We were quite poor for most of the season, other than the two mini-runs where we won 6 consecutive games between Dec-Jan and another 5 games between Mar-Apr, a lot of our performances were like what we have seen against Wham & Brentford recently. But we got lucky last year because 1) there's an extra place to qualify for CL; 2) we got a few more points than the xG table suggests. And of course, people are more tolerant when we have won the cup, which we performed excellently and fully deserved. But it still doesn't change the fact that we were poor for about half of the season. I would say in terms of performance, we didn't really changed a lot for the last 2 years. Last year wasn't as good as what we achieved, this season isn't as bad as the table suggests. We stayed almost the same.

He is hard to be 'used' as part of a well planned tactic. However he is also usually one of the better player on the pitch when our tactic doesn't work. Given how often we struggle tactically in the last 24 months, I do think a player like him would be valuable in our squad.

I think our major problem is that we don't really have an identity about our style of play for the last 24 months. Are we good at high pressing? We were excellent at it during the first 24 months under EH, but we are average at it now. So are we good at build-up play, possession based style of football? Certainly no. Adding Woltemade do make us look more fluid in possession, but still nowhere near as good as the top guns. Then are we good at counter-attacking? No, we don't really score a lot from fast breaks. Then at least, are we good at set pieces? No, we are rather average on it despite the personnel we have. We have to find a way to dominate our opponents week in, week out. IMO if you give EH a month to prepare for a single important match like we did against Liverpool or Arsenal in the League Cup last year, he can always find ways to exploit their weaknesses. But currently we don't have a tactic that every opponent in every week would fear about us.

No doubt his performance is disappointing so far, but I feel like he receives extra hatred because a lot of us have the illusion that we paid some sort of astronomical transfer fee on him. The fact is, without extraordinary luck or vision, or both, £52+3m won't buy you the brightest players nowadays. We're also probably willing to pay a bit more on transfer fee because he doesn't ask for a huge salary (reported salary is £80k pw). I feel sorry for him for getting extra hatred because he wasn't greedy. It may not even be easy to name 3 RWs that we would truly love to add to our squad while being cheaper than Elanga. Look at the other teams' transfers on wingers/AMs. Better players like Mbeumo and Kudus are considerably more expensive. Xavi Simons has both higher price tag and salary than Elanga and he is heavily criticized by Tottenham fans. Arsenal bought Madueke at similar transfer fee, on reported £150k pw. Garnacho is unwanted at Man Utd, yet Chelsea still have to pay £40m with 10% sell-on clause and reported £110k pw. Brentford bought Ouattara for £42.5m (he's doing alright there, but he relies a lot on speed like Elanga). Forest bought a guy called Omari Hutchinson from Ipswich for £37.5m who is apparently warming their bench. If you look at those transfers, you got a feeling that even if Elanga turns out to be a flop, selling him at £40-45m is entirely possible. So we might have paid £10-15m more than what he's worth, but it's nowhere near a catastrophic error.

When a club has 2 goalkeepers of similar quality, one starting in domestic league while the other starting in cup competitions (including UCL) is not unprecedented and such arrangement tend to have some degree of success. Real Madrid had done this to Diego Lopez/Casillas in 2013/14 and Barcelona with Claudio Bravo/ter-Stegen in 2014/15, with both winning UCL eventually. I think this arrangement could work with Pope/Ramsdale.

He becomes lazy. Even he only had 1G 0A during his first half season with us, I liked his work rate, trying hard to win every ball in or out of possession. It is not the case anymore. Quite often to see him jogging around when we are defending. He still have some good games when he is interested, but he is far too inconsistent now. He is part of the reason why we have to abandon the 'intensity is our identity' tactic imo. In hindsight we should have sold him to Liverpool in 2024 and get an upgrade. Unfortunately, based on his recent performance, I don't think any big clubs would be interested in him.

Tbf if he continues to struggle, I will probably hate him less. He had very bad intentions against us, but at the end of the day, we got a better striker (Woltemade) plus another striker (Wissa) due to his antics.

Tbf there were a few moments that he looked dangerous in his first 2 months, he just didn't show that enough. Almiron in contrast never looked like he's a threat since 2024.