Life After Emery Begins

[EmeryCouldnt]

Honestly, id spend our whole ****ing budget on Simeone to come in and let him rebuild this team. He wouldn't take half the **** these players put in as a so called performance. He would be livid and he would fight for the team and expect our players to run their socks off and run through a brick wall if needed.

It’d be so worth it just to see the softness beaten out of our players.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Nobody knows what he's like as a manager yet. You can't lick this bunch of misfits into shape in just 7 days.

There's one thing we do know about him as a manager: he's only been one for two games. And it's not like he has a wealth of experience as an assistant. Freddie may be a great manager someday, but he's a huge risk right now who is far more likely to make things worse than better. To believe he's the right guy at this point is just wishful thinking based on his status with the club as a player.

 

[Ceballinhos]

There's one thing we do know about him as a manager: he's only been one for two games. And it's not like he has a wealth of experience as an assistant. Freddie may be a great manager someday, but he's a huge risk right now who is far more likely to make things worse than better. To believe he's the right guy at this point is just wishful thinking based on his status with the club as a player.

Same applies for Arteta tbh.

Way too much overrated just because he works with pep, even though the evidence shows there's absolutely no correlation between working as an assistant with a great coach, and becoming a good manager, not even a great one.

Pep has been in the game for 10 years now. How many of his former assistants made the step to coaching? Tito but unfortunately he had to retire because of his cancer. But that's it. SAF has been working forever, and he's the greatest coach in PL history. I don't think any of his assistants has made it as a manager.
Hell even Henry has worked at Arsenal, and was close to Wenger, has assisted to a lot of training sessions. Then he worked with the Belgium's NT he was praised by Lukaku and Hazard for his work.
But then he failed miserably at Monaco.
Bould has worked with Wenger for years, I'm not even sure he's still an assistant at the club.

The only one I can think of is Zidane. But this is just a once in a lifetime kind of event.

The job is just too big for Arteta, right now. It's such a mess that it could ruin his whole career if he fails, because there's a big chance he will the way things are going. And it won't even be his fault. He will be in the middle of the worst crisis this club has been for 30 years.

 

[GDeep™]

The worrying thing is all the mistakes and bad decisions lead back to the board and people like Raul.

 

[Joestlaachmkr]

Can`t we just put this romanticisation of having former players as our manager dead once and for all? We desperately needs either Max Allegri, Luis Enrique, Diego Simeone, Thomas Tuchel, Julian Nagelsmann, Antonio Conte, Carlo Ancelotti, Leonardo Jardim, Brendan Rodgers, Erik Ten Hag or Zidane to become the next manager of AFC.

 

[GDeep™]

You know we said during Emery that “we can’t judge the players until a new manager arrives” but I think the truth was you can’t judge the managers until they get their own players.

No manager can work with Luiz, Sokratis, Mustafi, Torreira, Bellerin.

Then who do you build your attack around? Auba and Laca are poor players and Pepe is new.

Pep won’t finish top 6 with this team.

 

[Malky]

I think people forget why those early Wenger teams dominated the way they did. It wasn't just the nice football. They were big, fast and mean. You not only worried about them embarrassing you from a technical standpoint but you also worried about them completely dominating you physically. We don't have a single player outside of Kolasinac who has got any measure of power to their game. Literally no one else. There's not another guy at the club who can put their head down and go through a tackle. The Invincibles typically fielded no fewer than 8 such players on a given day. That simply doesn't work in England. I'm hard pressed to think of a physically weaker team in the PL than us. Everyone thinks they can impose their will on us and they do and now we're not even at the technical level to punish teams with our passing and movement. So we're just weak and average. No wonder the results are what they are.

True! At times our Invincible side just bulldozed their way through teams - Lauren, Camapbell, Cole, Vieira, Gilberto, etc, were some flat track bullies when they wanted to be. Now we've got Sokratis, Luiz, Willock, Xhaka and Torreira being bullied at home

 

[Joestlaachmkr]

You know we said during Emery that “we can’t judge the players until a new manager arrives” but I think the truth was you can’t judge the managers until they get their own players.

No manager can work with Luiz, Sokratis, Mustafi, Torreira, Bellerin.

Then who do you build your attack around? Auba and Laca are poor players and Pepe is new.

Pep won’t finish top 6 with this team.

But maybe the problem was that Emery was the wrong man for the job to begin with? most managers would drill Luiz, Sokratis, Mustafi, Torreira, Xhaka and Bellerin to perform at a whole different level than what they currently are doing the exception might be Luiz and Mustafi.

We have one of the best striking force in the PL with Laca and Auba, and a top class manager would make them both perform even better. And Pepe needs more time to settle in before we can start criticize him.

A manager like Pep would have sold 2-3 players before the start of the season and brought in a few players, and Pep or Klopp would certainly have finished top 4 with The Gunners. There is a reason why Lampard decided to give Luiz the boot at Chelsea.

For me it became clear pretty quickly that Emery did not have the authority nor the respect from his players.

 

[Ceballinhos]

Don't we have a fitness issue in the squad?

I mean it's like we're not playing the same sports as our opponents. We only could play with intensity for no more than 10/15 min per HT.
After the equalizer we were so much more dynamic. Bellerin and laca have made 2 great tackles around their box and it got us 2 goalscoring opportunities.
But then that was it. We were slow af. Always walking back. We looked washed ultimately until we've conceded the 2nd goal.

It's like we're not fit enough 2 play at high tempo for at least 70/80 minutes.

 

[Pepes blue pill]

Don't we have a fitness issue in the squad?

I mean it's like we're not playing the same sports as our opponents. We only could play with intensity for no more than 10/15 min per HT.
After the equalizer we were so much more dynamic. Bellerin and laca have made 2 great tackles around their box and it got us 2 goalscoring opportunities.
But then that was it. We were slow af. Always walking back. We looked washed ultimately until we've conceded the 2nd goal.

It's like we're not fit enough 2 play at high tempo for at least 70/80 minutes.

A young girl who was there with her dad asked him why do they play so slow, I just looked at my brother and said even kids understand it, sadly the people at the club dont seem to

 

[Ceballinhos]

But maybe the problem was that Emery was the wrong man for the job to begin with? most managers would drill Luiz, Sokratis, Mustafi, Torreira, Xhaka and Bellerin to perform at a whole different level than what they currently are doing the exception might be Luiz and Mustafi.

We have one of the best striking force in the PL with Laca and Auba, and a top class manager would make them both perform even better. And Pepe needs more time to settle in before we can start criticize him.

A manager like Pep would have sold 2-3 players before the start of the season and brought in a few players, and Pep or Klopp would certainly have finished top 4 with The Gunners. There is a reason why Lampard decided to give Luiz the boot at Chelsea.

For me it became clear pretty quickly that Emery did not have the authority nor the respect from his players.

Nah there's a reason there's not a single top manager that plays with 2 strikers on a consistent basis anymore.

And most of our players are overrated and there isn't a big market for them tbf.
We tried to sell Özil and mustafi the whole summer but we couldn't. Mkhi and Moh were just loans. Why would have it been any different with Pep?

 

[Pepes blue pill]

Whoever gets the job we need to get behind and support them....no one is going to come in and turn us into a top team straight of the bat, its gonna require time

 

[Joestlaachmkr]

Nah there's a reason there's not a single top manager that plays with 2 strikers on a consistent basis anymore.

And most of our players are overrated and there isn't a big market for them tbf.
We tried to sell Özil and xhaka the whole summer but we couldn't. Why would have it been any different with Pep?

But.. Klopp, Pep, Simeone, Zidane, Tuchel, Ancelotti, Allegri, Conte, Ten Hag and Zidane rarely plays with 2 strikers upfront, so what tells you that would do that with Arsenal?

I fully agree that our squad is averrage at best, but i also think that most top class managers would have gotten more out of them than what Emery or Ljungberg has shown.

If we had appointed either Enrique, Tuchel, Allegri, Jardim or Rodgers (who all were available at the time) 18 months ago instead of Emery then i`m quite sure things would have "slightly" different today.

 

[Ceballinhos]

But.. Klopp, Pep, Simeone, Zidane, Tuchel, Ancelotti, Allegri, Conte, Ten Hag and Zidane rarely plays with 2 strikers upfront, so what tells you that would do that with Arsenal?

I fully agree that our squad is averrage at best, but i also think that most top class managers would have gotten more out of them than what Emery or Ljungberg has shown.

If we had appointed either Enrique, Tuchel, Allegri, Jardim or Rodgers (who all were available at the time) 18 months ago instead of Emery then i`m quite sure things would have "slightly" different today.

Yeah it might be true but our ceiling is really too low because our squad is too flawed in midfield and defense. Top 4 would have been a hard Target to achieve with this squad.

And right now the players confidence is so tanked that I'm not even sure if even a great coach could save this season. It looks so bad right now.

 

[Arsenal1508]

I think it's time for a return for Frank Rijkaard. Can we convince him to come out of retirement?

 

[Highbury_2006]

Why would any kind of decent manager want to join our mess?

 

[Slartibartfast]

Same applies for Arteta tbh.

Way too much overrated just because he works with pep, even though the evidence shows there's absolutely no correlation between working as an assistant with a great coach, and becoming a good manager, not even a great one.

Pep has been in the game for 10 years now. How many of his former assistants made the step to coaching? Tito but unfortunately he had to retire because of his cancer. But that's it. SAF has been working forever, and he's the greatest coach in PL history. I don't think any of his assistants has made it as a manager.
Hell even Henry has worked at Arsenal, and was close to Wenger, has assisted to a lot of training sessions. Then he worked with the Belgium's NT he was praised by Lukaku and Hazard for his work.
But then he failed miserably at Monaco.
Bould has worked with Wenger for years, I'm not even sure he's still an assistant at the club.

The only one I can think of is Zidane. But this is just a once in a lifetime kind of event.

The job is just too big for Arteta, right now. It's such a mess that it could ruin his whole career if he fails, because there's a big chance he will the way things are going. And it won't even be his fault. He will be in the middle of the worst crisis this club has been for 30 years.

You're right. Although I do think his experience gives him a far better chance than Freddie, but as I said in 2018, he really should go manage Everton or somebody first. Ironically, the Everton job has just come open.

 

[Gooner_girl14]

Don't we have a fitness issue in the squad?

I mean it's like we're not playing the same sports as our opponents. We only could play with intensity for no more than 10/15 min per HT.
After the equalizer we were so much more dynamic. Bellerin and laca have made 2 great tackles around their box and it got us 2 goalscoring opportunities.
But then that was it. We were slow af. Always walking back. We looked washed ultimately until we've conceded the 2nd goal.

It's like we're not fit enough 2 play at high tempo for at least 70/80 minutes.

Personally I don't think it's a fitness issue as such, but more a physicality/strength problem. Most of our players are just 'soft'. They get easily out-muscled or pushed off the ball, and we have no ball winners or good tacklers (except perhaps Torreira). We also have no pace in key areas (CM and CB), so when we do lose the ball higher up the pitch we can't recover.
Going a bit off-topic, but it boggles my mind what Wenger saw in Xhaka. No pace, power, physicality, poor positioning, poor tackling. Literally all the things you want from a CM. And his only strength of note - his passing - is average at best, and even his long-range passing we could get from Luiz.

 

[Gooner_girl14]

You're right. Although I do think his experience gives him a far better chance than Freddie, but as I said in 2018, he really should go manage Everton or somebody first. Ironically, the Everton job has just come open.

I agree, I think he should have a head coach position first. It's too big of a jump at this stage, especially as we are rotten right now. I think the next man we get has to have excellent player management skills, which IMO is just as important as tactics/football philosophy right now. It's going to take some work to get the best out of these players now and re-motivate them, and I think we need a more experienced head for that kind of massive job.

 

[carlito'sway]

What’s Nice’s situation at the minute. Is he doing well or underachieving considering the circumstances? @carlito'sway

He had a decent first season but tt is a tough one this year for Viera. The start of the season for Nice has been pretty chaotic to say the least with the sale of the club that was completed basically at the end of August. He lost 3 or 4 of his top players to injury for a good part of the season as well.
Having said that, I am not convinced of Viera's philosophy and vision. His teams do not show much in term of flair and creativity and seem to be set up not to lose. At this stage, I don't think he has shown much to deserve the Arsenal top job.