He must be an over-excited Arsenal fan, speaking solely from his emotions, like fans normally do.
Arsenal will remain alone on top after the 3rd week of matches, so that's why he rushes to his typing pad to scribble this blog post.
You certainly have judged very incorrectly.
TOAST
First, a toast to the Arsenal side of things, it was a tie with Manchester City on points for the first position, but with City's 3-all draw with Newcastle and Arsenal's 3-nil victory over Bournemouth this weekend, Arsenal is all clear on top of the log. Kudos the Gunners!
NOW TO IT
Now to substantiate on my blog title. I ask you a question. Why didn't Arsenal qualify for the Champions League last season? A genuine answer to this question is what we call QED in Maths, meaning a proposition has been satisfactorily proven, true.
Have you thought back and answered it now?
If your answer was correct it should border on what I call, "January 2022". Yeah that's it! Okay let me produce for you an excerpt from a post of mine here:
"As for Arteta, you can't be seemingly quarrelling with everything– with Auba, Torreira is not good, Guendozi is annoying you, Saliba is too young,Mavropanos is whatever. Now see how many players were eager to go this January and indeed they are gone. Even Lacazette and Nketiah(the only two senior strikers remaining) could have gone if Arteta didn't step in and halt any deal from happening for obvious reasons...
Okay let's agree that it's his coaching style or pattern of play that is too advanced or new for a lot of players to understand, then sign your brand of players, he won't!"– Feb 2nd,2022
Furthermore, I concluded in thesame post by saying:
"Back to the matter, what Arsenal has now is a squad too thin to meet her goals this season. Or is it "supposed goals" I should say? One doesn't seem to know what is happening.
"Perhaps Arsenal fans have been deceived– they are busy thinking their team should be pushing for a Champions League berth this season, whereas the coach, Edu and co are not so into that, they like the fact that this team is really young, that salaries are lighter and then they are saying, "Hey Arteta don't worry so much about this season, when we get to the summer, there would be funds to buy some players and then you can challenge for the Champions League place."
Again here is an excerpt from my Hive post over a year ago:
"If we must say the blunt truth, Mohamed Elneny has been a better shield for our defence than Partey throughout last season. I repeat Elneny was way better than Partey in that defensive midfield position all through last season[2020/21] cummulatively."
TWO MAJOR PROBLEMS
So it's quite simple–
If Aubameyang's goals had been replaced, Arsenal would have been in a much better place.
If Arteta had known that Elneny was a fantastic deputy for Partey, he wouldn't have been using Lokonga in place of the injured Partey especially when a Xhaka is covering for an injured Tierney at left-back.
The combination of these two failings cost Arsenal crucial points.
Now Arteta stubbornly or naively persisted with starting a hardworking but misfiring Lacazette, when an able Nketiah, a goal poacher, was on the bench(coming in for a few paltry minutes, if at all). Lacazette had been giving fans a lot of headaches with his lack of accuracy in front of goal, even when Aubameyang was still in the club in December 2021(but banished from first team football), so it was a mystery why Arteta persisted with him starting in January and beyond, when Nketiah had shown more than enough quality in the Europa to usurp him, esp as Arteta wasn't ready to buy another big striker.
Infact both problems above are similar.
Finally, Arteta belatedly realised and corrected his error of benching Elneny, as well as belatedly realising his Nketiah goof and began starting both of them. The result was a huge upturn in Arsenal’s play and results, with Nketiah banging in goals and the leaky midfield stemmed.
But ofcourse, the damage had already been done, those corrections were too late!
CONCLUSION
Recall that Arsenal didn't finish 7th, they finished 5th and only 2 points behind 4th placed Tottenham and a massive 11 points ahead of 6th placed United. Infact at a time, Arsenal was poised to finish 3rd and above Chelsea.
I guess, now you clearly see my end-point? He has bought a proper striker now in Gabriel Jesus, Elneny has been given the confidence to remain and he's fully installed as Partey's deputy. So what are we not saying? What is the impediment on Arsenal's way?
Did those who finished ahead or below Arsenal make outrageous signings? The answer is no. Coaches were hardly changed, it's only Tottenham that we can say made quite a huge statement of intent in signings, but even in context it's really nothing to worry about as far as the already sealed deal of Arsenal's Champions league participation next season is concerned.
So clear the road, this is no guess work or sentimental contraption, here comes the Gunners once again, gracing the Champions league stage and they could even be fighting for the EPL title this season!
Ref: ARSENAL ARTETA ATTRITION
ARSENAL ARTETA ATTRITION 2
cheerfully...
Maybe if you didn't loan out so many players in January then you might have qualified for Champions League. You requested to cancel the Spurs game because you had no players. That backfired quite a bit.
But
"Who knows in football, then may go and lose to Norwich" Michael Arteta.
What's the difference between six and half-a-dozen? Basically semantics,init?
So thanks for helping to further buttressing my point. Past challenges have been solved now,with interest even.🤷♂️
Many of those "failings" were actually part of the plan(if you see my post, Arsenal Arteta Attrition) even.
So once again,"clear the road.."
Thanks for visiting my abode thou of the Tottenham.
Cheers🙂
You forget one critical thing here. Jesus gets injured and your club is screwed so I wouldn't be calling the shots so quickly as there is no back up. This is the problem when teams rely on one or two players as the squad is not strong enough for the entire season.
Welcome here,
I thought you would also include that Partey gets injured often.
Don't forget I highlighted two reasons for the shortcoming last season.
Didn't you realise last season that along with Arteta belatedly finding Elneny as an adequate solution to Partey(as my post says), he also belatedly found Nketiah(I thought this was common knowledge, so now I would have to edit my blog to specifically mention him).
After that January window,Arteta persisted with Lokonga for Partey, Lacazette for Auba(that is why my post says, Arteta did not replace Auba's goals). It was after the damage was done,he discovered Elneny and Nketiah and they were terrific.
We have an able deputy striker, we have an able defensive midfielder. Most of those top clubs last season don't even have an able deputy striker right now, so what are we not saying here?🙂 I thought these things were clear for even the worst enemies of Arsenal to see.
Sire please, join the Arsenals and accept that this season is a done deal already–Champions league at the very least.
Thanks a lot for your visit.
Lol. You are on happy pills and will most likely be eating your words which I will keep one side to remind you later in the season. I actually thought Arsenal like Man Utd over achieved last season and happy for Arsenal to start so strong, but it is how you finish that counts. Lets see once they play the bigger teams how competitive they are as nothing has been tested yet.
Please remind me. They were even very competitive against the bigger teams last season. The issue last season was irritating losses to smaller ones. I didn't make my conclusion without investigation.
If you don't agree,it's okay,time will tell. I don't mind being reminded of this conversation.
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