Where are Arsenal with readiness to challenge?

[theHotHead]

There has been a lot of talk recently about squad changes, rebuilding, Youth 2.0. Removing Arteta from this conversation so as to not make it another Arteta is shit thread, where do people think we are with regard to our squad at this moment in time, with regard to being able to put up a realistic top 4 fight ? I say top 4 and not title challengers because thats the next step, challenging for top 4 is the step we should be making immediately, not this top 6 bullcrap I have seen people mention.

Goalkeepers:
Leno, Ramsdale

I think we have 2 good keepers who are at the level of a team with ambitions to challenge for the title, so they are good for top 4.


Defenders:
Tomiyasu, Chambers, Bellerin, White, Holding, Gabriel, Saliba, Mavrapanos, Mari, Tierney, Kolasinac, Tavares

Tomi, White, Gabriel, Saliba, Tierney I am comfortable with and think they are ok or will be ok given game time, Tavares perhaps. Should absulutely be able to challenge for top 4.


Midfielders:
AMN, Partey, Xhaka, Guendouzi, Torreira, Lokonga, Elneny, ESR, Odegaard

Partey, Lokonga, ESR and Odegaard should be our midfield core, of which I am perfectly happy with. I think we missed a trick with Torreira who is a very good specialist DM, we have misused him. but as challenging for top honours go, if Lokonga develops into the player I think he will, it will be as strong a midfield as anyone's !!


Forwards:
Saka, Martinelli, Pepe, Auba, Laca, Nketiah, Balogun

We have a mis-firing attack fed on scraps, too many "in development players" though and our previously reliable experienced players are not scoring. Enough for top 4, not good enough to challenge for the title.


So with all of that said, where are we with our rebuild, I think perhaps a wide forward, a centre forward and possibly a good defensive midfielder away from giving the likes of Man City and Liverpool some trouble.

[jayramfootball]

If you mean challenge for the title I think we're some way off. The players we have brought in will need time to develop and also gel as a team.

Players - red are either not good enough or are not part of the near future..

Goalkeepers:
Leno, Ramsdale

Defenders:
Tomiyasu, Chambers, Bellerin, White, Holding, Gabriel, Saliba, Mavrapanos, Mari, Tierney, Kolasinac, Tavares

Midfielders:
AMN, Partey, Xhaka, Guendouzi, Torreira, Lokonga, Elneny, ESR, Odegaard

Forwards:
Saka, Martinelli, Pepe, Auba, Laca, Nketiah, Balogun


So, we need
- a good back up goalkeeper
- an additional holding midfielder + possibly an additional creative midfielder
- a striker.

This year if we can get top 6 and be in spitting distance of top 4, we'll be in good shape to challenge for top 4 next year if we bring in the players above.
Maybe a couple of years after that we could be ready to make a serious run at the title.

All with a happy path, of course.
Right now there is no guarantee we will ever get back to being a top 4 club.

[swipe right]

HH - do we need another thread on this topic? It’s depressing enough as it is.

[theHotHead]

Jay, this is about challenging for top 4, I don't see top 6 as a goal or an achievement we as Arsenal fans should be bothering ourselves with, at the very least our goal should be top 4. Once we get back to their focus must turn to challenging for the title.

[theHotHead]

HH - do we need another thread on this topic? It’s depressing enough as it is.

To be honest I am not depressed about the squad, I never really have been, my issue is with the manager.

So based on our current squad, why are you depressed ? I think we have a pretty good squad and should absolutely be performing much better than we have been.

[jayramfootball]

Jay, this is about challenging for top 4, I don't see top 6 as a goal or an achievement we as Arsenal fans should be bothering ourselves with, at the very least our goal should be top 4. Once we get back to their focus must turn to challenging for the title.

Top 6 would be a good achievement at this stage of the strategy laid out by the club.
To get top 4 we will need to finish above either Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool or Man City. Not sure that is a realistic goal for this year, more of a hope.
From a squad perspective there is more to do. Good start at an overhaul but we need some more players.

I think when you judge players, you judge them on skill/technique - or at least if you think we've never had a squad problem, you must be missing some criteria. To me how good a squad also includes their mental toughness to play at this level and their dedication to the task which has a lot to do with character. Our squad has been sadly lacking for a long time in that respect. Seems to be changing with the new signings. All of them seem to be strong characters that are not going to fold when the pressure is on.

[swipe right]

HH - do we need another thread on this topic? It’s depressing enough as it is.

To be honest I am not depressed about the squad, I never really have been, my issue is with the manager.

So based on our current squad, why are you depressed ? I think we have a pretty good squad and should absolutely be performing much better than we have been.

We are not challenging for any trophies this year. End of.

[jayramfootball]

HH - do we need another thread on this topic? It’s depressing enough as it is.

To be honest I am not depressed about the squad, I never really have been, my issue is with the manager.

So based on our current squad, why are you depressed ? I think we have a pretty good squad and should absolutely be performing much better than we have been.

We are not challenging for any trophies this year. End of.

FA Cup?
League Cup?

[theHotHead]

HH - do we need another thread on this topic? It’s depressing enough as it is.

To be honest I am not depressed about the squad, I never really have been, my issue is with the manager.

So based on our current squad, why are you depressed ? I think we have a pretty good squad and should absolutely be performing much better than we have been.

We are not challenging for any trophies this year. End of.

Yeah but thats nothing to be depressed about, putting up a fight is what matters more than anything. The best times I have had supporting Arsenal and going to games were in the 80s and 90s when we were not challenging for much - then again, tickets didn't cost £80 then either !

The squad isn't bad at all, even with the deadwood - they don't have to get game time - we have lots of good players from front to back to be able to make inroads in to our main competitors leads, thats the point I am trying to make, surely thats not reason to be depressed.

[Goonerz]

I do feel like we should be fighting for Top 4.
We do have the players but I just feel like Arteta seems out of his depth.

Just about finishing 6th is not good enough in my own opinion. I want the team to so fight against the likes of City, Liverpool, Chelsea, United etc.. After playing the other big team I want it to come out of most of those games feeling like we were not outplayed or embarrassed like we have been for since 2011.

Right now it feels like we are as disjointed and clueless a team as always. I don’t feel confident going into many games.

Lets give the Top 4 teams a real challenge and if we finish 5th ot 6th at the end then that will be fine. But just finishing 6th while we were well off Top 4 will not be progress in my opinion.

It reminds me of the 2015/16 season when Leicester won the league. The final EPL table showed that we finished 2nd. But most of us knew it was just false flags and just misleading. We weren’t the 2nd best team that season in my honest opinion. We just ended up in 2nd place.

I don’t want to just end up in 6th place. I want to see real progress in our general play.

[DiamondGooner]

Challenge for what ......... the Premiership?

Have a word.

4 years off at least and if Arteta continues to be such a drab manager it will be a lot longer.

We didn't even qualify for the Europa.

[Angelito]

Challenging for the title? Won't happen for at least a decade. You need three factors to mount a title challenge:

a. We strike gold with a world class manager as we did with Wenger in the mid-90s;
b. The owners become serious enough and compete financially with Chelsea, City, United, whilst having a visionary set of administrators at the helm;
c. We pull off a Leicester-esque season.

The third is improbable. Kroenkes haven't shown any intention to go all out for a title challenge, hence, we can rule that out as well. As for the first option, unless Arteta turns out to be that guy or we hire the likes of Conte or Zidane, this doesn't look likely either.

Unlike Liverpool, who're serious on and off the field and aim to win, Arsenal gives me the feeling that the ultimate goal is still to be a UCL regular and remain in it. Liverpool have a capable team, a world class manager, and they amassed a fortune by selling Coutinho that essentially bankrolled their UCL and PL wins.

With a dedicated team and a world class manager, they (Liverpool) still cannot win titles regularly as the financial muscle of City, Chelsea, and United makes it insurmountable for most clubs in the world, let alone England.

As for top-4, we'd need to drastically improve and aim to beat most sides not in the top-6 to pull it off.

These 1-0 wins against relegation fodder is good for team morale but we'll eventually drop too many points as we simply are incapable of creating big chances or out-scoring oppositions. The attack under Arteta since project restart after the initial lockdown has been uninspiring to put it nicely.

Arsenal will have to bank on UEFA's coefficient points to return back into the UCL starting 2024. If we can qualify for next season's Europa League, or if we could win the Conference League next season, that would boost our chances as UEFA has essentially rigged the qualification system for the Big 6 clubs in England.

Most people ignore Arsenal's tepid history in the European Cup/Champions League before Wenger arrived. Forget about winning, we participated in the European Cup twice in our entire history. We'd have a couple of more appearances under Graham had it not been for the ban. Nonetheless, it was only under Wenger that we went from having two appearances to qualifying for 20 years in a row, albeit with a format-change. Even the UEFA Cup, we only qualified thrice before Wenger arrived.

To cut it short, today we're right where we used to be from '71 until '88. This period isn't an anomaly for Arsenal. Rather, it's more of how it used to be. We qualified for the UEFA Cup or the Cup Winner's Cup here and there. Ditto today as we look to qualify for the Europa League or the Conference League.

Nevertheless, it's unlikely we find ourselves in the Champions League before 2024.

Arteta has spent around £225m in two summers at Arsenal. With a forward very much the go-to position alongside a CM next summer, we'd be looking at another £100-150m spending spree next summer depending on the type of players we want to purchase. All of this when Arteta hasn't really proven himself.

All these factors considered, Europa League football is the highest we can hope for in these three seasons before 2024.

[theHotHead]

Angelito, are you saying all 3 factors are required or any one of 3?

I agree with factor one and three, don't agree with factor 2. Every league has examples where teams won their league without being a money club. What we need is a competent manager and some shrewd purchases. I think Lokonga and Tomi are great examples, get us a good CF and DM and our starting team would be a match for any, 2 or 3 more key additions would make the squad stronger and its that we need to mount a title challenge.

[swipe right]

HH - do we need another thread on this topic? It’s depressing enough as it is.

To be honest I am not depressed about the squad, I never really have been, my issue is with the manager.

So based on our current squad, why are you depressed ? I think we have a pretty good squad and should absolutely be performing much better than we have been.

We are not challenging for any trophies this year. End of.

Yeah but thats nothing to be depressed about, putting up a fight is what matters more than anything. The best times I have had supporting Arsenal and going to games were in the 80s and 90s when we were not challenging for much - then again, tickets didn't cost £80 then either !

The squad isn't bad at all, even with the deadwood - they don't have to get game time - we have lots of good players from front to back to be able to make inroads in to our main competitors leads, thats the point I am trying to make, surely thats not reason to be depressed.

Nobody is saying we shouldn’t support the club or not enjoy the football. There is a reality that we have to accept as fans. Twenty years ago we were title contenders, then we stopped being title contenders but were playing in Europe and competing for cups at home. We have now fallen down the next rung in the ladder which is missing top four and being underdogs in cups. This is not some great reset or rebuild. This is the next chapter in Kroenkes administration of our club which is managing our expectations down. That’s what is depressing.

Additionally, The football is unwatchable. Even during Wenger’s lean years we played some free flowing football with guys like Sanchez and Ozil. But that’s not Arteta’s way. He has absorbed Pep’s style which is grind the team into playing a set pattern until your in front of goal and then depend on the forwards to finish chances. He is not encouraging free expression or creativity. We look static with players not moving out of their positions or taking chances. To make matters worse he seems a poor tactician and his rigidity is hurting us.

Can we fluke a win of the FA cup or the league cup? Yeah sure. But remember Spurs haven’t even managed that in decades so without some luck we could have the same barren run.

[theHotHead]

Swipey, we are not Spurs, we are the third most successful team in English football history. We won't do a Spurs, we win stuff, always have. in the last 10 years, as shit as we have been, we have won 4 major trophies !!

We are not that far off challenging, I don't agree with the decade that was mentioned by Ang or 5 years by Jay, we could in all honesty challenge next season if we pick up 2 to 3 players we need and a decent manager.