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2 hours ago, The LBC said:

Nagelsmann is only 2 months into a contract at Leipzig, so I doubt he's going anywhere - plus there's a bit of the same Arteta type stuff there where I'm really not sure how responsive a dressing room is going to be to a coach who is younger than some of the players (beyond that, barring us earning CL qualification this season, he's not leaving Red Bull and CL football for Arsenal and Europa League).  Strongly doubt either ten Hag or Simeone leave their current gigs anytime soon.  And I know that the name that's going to get bandied about by our fans is Allegri, but can anyone honestly look at the Arsenal team sheet and tell me that Allegri's quicksand ball matches up well with the talents that are worth building around?  Because I don't see it.

 

I'm hoping PSG has another Champions League meltdown and Tuchel becomes available. Him or ten Haag feel the most 'Arsenal' in the sense of what we should be looking for but in both cases I don't think they come unless we're in the Champions League next year, so Emery may well be shoring up his own job security by sabotaging our ability to hire his successor. 

Getting more and more worried about Emery the more I watch this team though - our attacking structure is terrible but he also can't set us up to defend or play pragmatically, and our pressing is as sporadic and unorganized and it was under Wenger. He has found and helped develop a gem in Guendhozi but beyond that it doesn't seem like he has made many lasting positive impressions thus far - this is a team that is being carried by Auba and Lacazette and has been for his entire tenure. 

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40 minutes ago, BaltimoreTerp said:

I'm hoping PSG has another Champions League meltdown and Tuchel becomes available. Him or ten Haag feel the most 'Arsenal' in the sense of what we should be looking for but in both cases I don't think they come unless we're in the Champions League next year, so Emery may well be shoring up his own job security by sabotaging our ability to hire his successor. 

Getting more and more worried about Emery the more I watch this team though - our attacking structure is terrible but he also can't set us up to defend or play pragmatically, and our pressing is as sporadic and unorganized and it was under Wenger. He has found and helped develop a gem in Guendhozi but beyond that it doesn't seem like he has made many lasting positive impressions thus far - this is a team that is being carried by Auba and Lacazette and has been for his entire tenure. 

His philosophies don't mesh with the strengths of the team or with what have been Arsenal principals in the post-George-Graham era.  He wants to take conservative approaches (by all accounts he did that at Valencia - to their detriment in-league - as well).  He can gameplan to exploit an opponent's weakness (when they have it) but not to safeguard his own side's frailties; and he lacks the conviction (the balls perhaps) to throw caution to the wind and, particularly against non-Top-6 sides, go all out to exploit the opposing side's weakness, forcing them to be the reactionary one... which with our current side would be the, "Yeah, you'll score on us, but we're going to put in 3-4 minimum against you" which is basically a big game of chicken (and who is going to pull the rip cord on the parachute first) but one you'd typically favor a side featuring Auba, Lacazette, Pepe, Ceballos in.

What concerns me about him as much, if not more, than the tactical errors is that he appears utterly incapable of motivating the dressing room - he even appears to outsource that.  I haven't studied them as much, but with Raul and Edu looking like their got the technical side well in order, making it to where what we really need is a coach rather than an out-and-out manager, we could be in a prime position to take advantage of a firing in the ever-overzealous world of international side managers (I'm just not as well studied up on that lot to feel comfortable making an informed opinion as to a good - and at least potentially available - option).

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I really don't get the outrage from United fans about our start to the season. What did people actually expect from this squad? It is absolutely miles off. Sacking the Manager will do no good at all. There is no short term fix to this, and frankly, the worse we do the more attention it will get from the leeches that own the club.

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That was the most painful Arsenal/United match I can remember watching in my 25 years of supporting Arsenal. 

Also, Kevin Friend and his crew need some serious retraining.  Aubameyang, when he was flagged for offside by the linesman, was onside by a country mile... and the line-o had a defender directly in front of him for reference.  Xhaka should have been sent off for cumulative yellows (why he didn't get one for the blatant foul - that's become his trademark foul - on the counter that led to the United goal is beyond me).  And Rashford needs to go light some candles in church that he wasn't given a straight red for his studs-up tackle for 3 yards out to Sokatris' Achilles where he made no attempt to win the ball whatsoever.  If the shirts had been reversed and Sokratis or Xhaka had made that challenge, it would have been a straight-red no doubt, and I wouldn't be shocked to see the FA toying with the idea of slapping additional time onto the resulting ban for either of them.

Emery is just philosophically opposed, it's pretty clear at this point, to setting up this side the way that best fits and suits the players (and the way that the technical side of club management wants).  Sadly, short of an outright player insurrection/mutiny, I can't see him getting the sack until Christmas at the earliest (probably later and I can definitely see them riding it out until end of season unless they identify a successor they absolutely have to have and determine they need to make a more immediate move in order to secure him before other PL clubs come calling).

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In a weird way reaching the Champions League final seems to have completely undone Spurs. Without that run I think we see a lot of natural attrition from the squad that was probably needed. Instead Levy held on to a core - including the manager himself - that just seems to be sick of each other now. 

 

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Emery needs to go. He already managed to screw up a gift-wrapped top 4 spot last year and he's doing everything he can do to it again this year.

If you're going to be a dull, unimaginative, coach who sucks the life out of your players in order to set them up scared and desperate to grind out results no matter who you're playing... you have to be able to get the results. Absolute hack of a manager, it's only fitting that Ivan Gazidis' only consequential decision at the club was to bring in an absolute mediocrity because he impressed him with a slick Power Point presentation. 

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6 hours ago, BaltimoreTerp said:

Emery needs to go. He already managed to screw up a gift-wrapped top 4 spot last year and he's doing everything he can do to it again this year.

If you're going to be a dull, unimaginative, coach who sucks the life out of your players in order to set them up scared and desperate to grind out results no matter who you're playing... you have to be able to get the results. Absolute hack of a manager, it's only fitting that Ivan Gazidis' only consequential decision at the club was to bring in an absolute mediocrity because he impressed him with a slick Power Point presentation. 

Has Torreira been bad? I see he's on the bench. Same question with Tierney.

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On 10/21/2019 at 8:37 PM, Canadian Saint said:

Has Torreira been bad? I see he's on the bench. Same question with Tierney.

He's not been bad.  I've been critical of him for doing the typical South American "make a meal out of standard tackles to try and ensure the opposition is booked" stuff, but ultimately, Emery wanted N'Zonzi (because he fits a more physical - read: "taller" - mold of a midfielder to sit in front of the back line), Raul told him no, Torreira is good, we like Torreira, Torreira is who you're going to get... and so now Emery has decided that Torreira is only going to be played as a second-choice #8 (and keeps encouraging him to push up into offense).

Tiernay, one would hope that's been solved now, but Emery's excuse was that he "didn't feel Kolasinac had done anything to merit losing his place ahead of Tiernay" (you know, except the fact that Tiernay's had a better performance this season than any Kolasinac has put in all season).

Emery is one of those "low-key huge ego" types where it's not out in the open for all to see, but if you look closer it's there and it's a problem.  He appears quite willing to cut off his nose to spite his face.

We're just one giant dumpster fire right now.  Emery is the crux of the problem, but I'm at the point where I won't be silent about how entitled and trash a segment of our fans are (and it's not just the AFTV bunch, but that lot enable the larger lot).  Speaking from the perspective of someone who played the game at a fairly high level, if you're one of the 11 selected to start and less than 20 minutes into the match (well before any reasonable/logical point where a manager would make a non-injury-related substitution) your own side's fans start singing for one of the players on your bench, that's at bare minimum disheartening and discouraging.  You've not even been given the opportunity to really get into the match and make the case that your selection was justifiable, because their "telling the manager that they're protesting not getting the selection they think they deserved" is more important in their eyes than actually getting behind you and the squad.  And if you take issue with it, you're called "mentally weak."  And yet, that's what's happened in the last two domestic matches for Arsenal.  Is it minor?  More than it is major, but I feel it's indicative of something greater that's been teeming below the surface for the past 3-4 seasons.

Now part of this, I feel like, is because ownership/board has priced out a fair number of true loyalist supporters (who know you can be as critical as you want - without making personal attacks - on either side of the whistle, but when the whistle blows to start the match, if a player has put on the shirt you get behind them and you back the squad that's on the pitch).  But it's also been social media bolstering and enabling the bloviating types by providing them a medium to have a go at whomever however they like with no fear of reciprocation or repercussion because they're safe behind the shield that is their screen.

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