re: Arsenal 2015/2016 Season Long Thread

Good thing Ospina has looked so reassuring

Bella will miss you.

Come on fellas. Pick your self up and brush it off. Saturday is the NLD and if you don't watch it, no matter what you haven't been a true fan of the club.

Get up early and spike your coffee. It would be such a Wenger move to go there and win. We hit the inside of the post and the crossbar twice. Not having Kos killed us today.

But of course Arsene has his annual built-in excuse:

"But we had so many injuries, we did well to finish as high as we did!"

Here's my negative feeling for the day.

The best players on this team, the very best players, are surplus purchases from better teams.

Cech - Chelsea surplus
Alexis - Barcelona surplus
Ozil - Real Madrid surplus

Then, we've got the guys we've groomed who have plateaued/been injured/regressed

Ramsey - Nowhere near the impact he had in 13-14
Ox - Awful this year
Wilshere - RIP
Theo - frick

Then, there's the value/emergency buys

Giroud - never meant to be our first choice CF
Koscielny - Nothing bad to say about this guy
Gabriel - tons of potential, but rash
Monreal - Same as Kosc
Per - done
Flamini - was done years ago
Arteta - done
Welbeck - Love this guy, but Man U excess


Then, of course, the guys Wenger thought would never pan out but have come good

Coq - The man, but needs competition/upgrade
Campbell - Golden this year


Here's my plan for the future:
- Finish top four this year, but play the following guys as much as possible: Elneny, Chambers (who was so, so good vs. Leicester), Campbell, Welbeck

- Get rid of our worst/oldest players: Rosicky, Flamini, Arteta, Per (can be kept as cover, but only as cover)

- Spend some fricking money this summer. Buy elite players. Overspend on them, we've got the money. That's the market, deal with it. We need a CF, a winger, probably 2 CMs, 1/2 CBs, maybe a RB.

- Sell. Theo, Gibbs, Ox, and, dare I say it, Jack should all be priced out. Homegrown quotas and such. Selling two or three of that bunch should net us a lot of money.

This loyalty shite is nonsense. I wanted us to keep Theo last year because I like Theo and that was stupid. He's a one trick pony with one really good season to his name. I love Ramsey, but he's not been good enough this year. Maybe a purchase like Pogba (not Pogba, per se, but like Pogba) would light a fire under his arse.

- And, finally, bring in a new manager. Love you Arsene, but you're done.

That is, of course, unless we somehow, by miracles of the old gods and the new, turn it around and win the league. Then, we can keep Arsene, but we must go out and buy stars. Not surplus from other clubs. Stars.

I agree with all of your points there. It was a very good post, so I hate to screw with it by talking about something different. Although, it's about Cambell, so it fits a bit.

Can anyone explain to me why Campbell was the one to come off for Danny? I though Campbell and Coq were by far the best players yesterday. It was so nice to have someone on the right wing that 1. came back for the ball and 2. attacked when he had it. It seemed so clear that Giroud or Alexis should have come out. Am I wrong on this?

I will also throw in there that Kingsley was making his league debut for the team at LB. As a Swans fan I was even questioning why Campbell was taken off.

I agree with all of this. Chambers has looked great after really having some nerves last year. And he never sees the field!!

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We aren't going to buy very much this summer. I'm resigned to it. A Kroneke led team will be led like a corporation, the team will have little soul, and we'll make the top four and everything will be okay. The massive opportunity we've had will have been wasted. The money we have in the bank is security for Kroneke to use in his other operations. We won't spend it.

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Well this is depressing. Great time to be a fan of the arse.

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I'd almost prefer it if we always set up in the low block and counterattacked at speed. It would suit Theo, Ozil, Sanchez, Ramsey, Welbeck and Ox if we did do that.

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But for whatever reason Wenger seems hesitant to do this, despite the fact that we are so well set up for it. It makes me doubt him as the right manager for this team, but then again so have many of his decisions. Seriously though it's time for some new blood. We have to move on. This was the year to win it and we didn't, and the one holdover from year to year is obviously Arsene.

Wenger is the problem. How is it that Guardiola can teach his players the high press game but with Wenger we are outshone technically by the best teams, and out-athleted by the everyone else? It just kills me that we haven't featured a side playing attractive football since maybe 2010?

The problem is that the side is set up naively. God there was one game where Ramsey and Flamini were trapped on the left side of the fricking field while attacking ( I think it was Newcastle). The spacing is all wrong. Players don't work together very well. For the love of god players still beg for the ball to feet all god damn game. It kills me. How many no 10's does a team need? There has to be balance. We don't have structure. We get by on the out-talenting other teams. When we do play with structure, we do very well against top teams. We've been tactically naive for many years. I'd rather we improve upon our organization on the field. If the one thing we gained from this season is an organizational structure, I'd love it. The team can't play the high press well because the team presses inconsistently. I remember the Barcelona game from 2010 (the 2-2 game) Zlatan's first goal came from a ball over the top which only happened because we had a relatively high line with no front players pressing the ball. Now our front players press the ball, or at least they run around, but they don't work together and press with teammates. It's tiring that we've seen the same lack of organization for 6 years.