Considering he had Mahrez who made a name for himself doing exactly that and adding a ton of end product to his game as well as sane. Not really that ground breaking tbh. There’s not many teams that deploy inverted fullbacks in the league as well tbh.
Obviously wrong was the fact the wolves player cleanly got the ball first, no studs showing for a potential dangerous tackle. Even the ref admitted it shouldn’t have been given and he didn’t know why var didn’t send him to monitor.
Exactly. I don’t get these excuses people giving him. He himself has spoken publicly about how when new players come in, their coming to take someone’s position in the team. It’s happened to him now and he’s not competing with turner every week. There’s players in this team that have dealt with situations like this and look at their response. Saliba shipped out for multiple seasons, martinelli barely got a look in the starting team for a good 8/9 months after his long injury. Both players who fans wondered if arteta even rated and had long term future under us. Gabriel was also benched for pablo Mari in his first season for a while, there was actually fans who rated pablo Mari more. Nelson barely gets a look in but has kept his head down and works hard. Nketiah had his period where he hardly played highlighted in the doc when he tells lokonga to stop feeling sorry for himself. Smith rowe has been going through similar of recent times after being a staple, be interesting to see how he ends up. I get it’s different for keepers because outfield players can get minutes off bench but no one’s place should be guaranteed if we want to compete with city. He’s a professional paid millions to do his job. Part of his job description is he may have to play second fiddle to someone else at times. If the wants to be the arsenal no.1 he’s got to show the character to come out the other side of this. I can assure you arteta ain’t looking at this and thinking “yeah this guy probably might still be my long term no.1”. You get your opportunity and you are a nervous wreck to the point arteta on the touchline is asking you to go long rather than play out the back.
He wasn’t bad per say but he was much better with his distribution in his first season. When on a title charge your key players have to be top performing in areas that are vital part of the team. When going up against teams with Allison and ederson who can accurately bypass any press with long ball distribution, having ramsdale 22nd in the league which may be below some people’s second choice keepers, isn’t good enough. Raya was a keeper who was providing performances distribution wise up there with the best in the league as shown by the stats in the article. Arteta simply sees him as a clear upgrade from a distribution standpoint.
I would only blame arteta with one 8th place finish. We were dropping like a stone by the time he took over and inherited the mess from emery and Freddie. Stabilised us and we finished 8th and won fa cup. However, that 8th place finish is as much on emery and Freddie as it is arteta. Arsenal were a point away from UCL places in Emery’s first full season and had it not been for auba missing a last minute penalty Vs spurs or emery doing galaxy brain and deciding to rest key players against Brighton and palace at home at the end of the season we would have made top 4. So the team wasn’t “barely good enough to qualify for Europe”.
However emery was a victim of inheriting a mess of Wenger’s final season, gazidis incompetence as a CEO and mislintats “diamond eye” for transfers which was basically ex Dortmund players.
However, he also wasn’t this amazing coach that’s gone under the radar, we held 4 in Baku to Chelsea under a manager who didn’t want to be there and who’s fans that didn’t want him there. He also decided to play a guy in goal who had already accepted a job at Chelsea for the next season. Bought Leno to replace cech cos he couldn’t play out the back and plays him in the biggest game of the season. We were conceding 20 shots on our goal every game, our CDM he bought was played as 10, the players forgot how to make simple and effective passes (freddies first coaching session involved him explaining simple passing to the players) and the football after the initial honeymoon period was boring (pass to kolasinac and get him to cut it back) even in Wenger’s worst years we’d play some decent football.
Bet your fun at parties ain’t you. Man actually asked that question.
I’m sure his behaviour on the pitch is also behind a potential charge. Don’t abuse refs or question their decision making.