Mikel Arteta, First-Team Manager

[Nuggets]

Mikel Arteta explains how Arsenal can close gap on Liverpool FC this season......going on last nights performance we will need divine intervention lol

We have improved Nuggets
But all help is welcome for those who pray.
Not my thing though

I will light a few candles for the next game.

[theHotHead]

Shocking performance, we were defensively all over the shop, we couldn't hold on to the ball and we couldn't move the ball forward.

All of the above when playing counter attacking football nullifies your game. We didn't get the basics right. Very disappointing game.

[PairyGrows]

What I find very concerning is that I'm not seeing marked improvement on the tactical side of things. Sure, we're more organised in defence now, but that doesn't amount to much. The only time we look half-decent is when we play teams on the counter. Apart from that, we play boring, uninspired, inefficient football. We struggle tremendously to create chances, and we depend on flashes of individual brilliance from our players. In that respect, we are in the exact same place we were under Wenger and Emery.

Arteta has been in charge of the club for almost a year now. That should be plenty of time for him to make at least noticeable tactical improvements, but so far we're very lacking in that area. It's not enough that Arteta can galvanise the team. To be honest, he needs to address the tactical problems immediately. Otherwise, there's a chance he's going the same way as Emery.

[Sims]

We need midfielders

Once we get them in we’ll see the next elevation of Mikel’s project

[Power n Glory]

We need better midfielders but I thought Ceballos showed great vision with some of his passing yesterday. Sliced through their defence with some great passes. Hopefully, Arteta sees that it's time to hook Xhaka and start a combo of Elneny and Ceballos until we sign a new CM.

[Salibatelli]

Gabriel and Ceballos should have started, possibly even Pepe.

We should have been more offensive, the defensive tactic might have worked in the past but it’s a bit of pot luck and requires the defence to be spot on.

We had enough pace and Liverpool are very attacking and this leave space behind their defence and that what you need to try and exploit, might not work but you’ve got more chance than sitting back and creating nothing. Not playing Gabriel was a shocker, I’m not going to lie, we should be playing him and also give Saliba a chance, he can’t be worse than the two last night.

[theHotHead]

Nobody can deny a marked improvement defensively, we need to continue that improvement.

Offensively we have been shocking under Arteta. I get it, defence was by far our biggest issue, we cannot allow our offensive capacity to erode further than it is right now.

[Power n Glory]

Gabriel and Ceballos should have started, possibly even Pepe.

We should have been more offensive, the defensive tactic might have worked in the past but it’s a bit of pot luck and requires the defence to be spot on.

We had enough pace and Liverpool are very attacking and this leave space behind their defence and that what you need to try and exploit, might not work but you’ve got more chance than sitting back and creating nothing. Not playing Gabriel was a shocker, I’m not going to lie, we should be playing him and also give Saliba a chance, he can’t be worse than the two last night.

I think we're setting up to be a more counter attacking side and we won't be a team that just holds possession in front of our opponents goal anymore.

The goal we scored against Liverpool was lucky but considering the build up from the back, the way we cut right through them, it's not the first time we've done that and we transition much faster on the breaks.

We seem to have a pattern of play to our attacks. It all seems deliberate and it's great to watch when we pull it off but it's not a consistent attack and spell of possession.

[DiamondGooner]

Nobody can deny a marked improvement defensively, we need to continue that improvement.

Offensively we have been shocking under Arteta. I get it, defence was by far our biggest issue, we cannot allow our offensive capacity to erode further than it is right now.

The issue against Liverpool is they have a better team than we do hence why we play the counter, a tactic that if Laca and Auba had scored their minimal chances we'd of drawn at least.

Look at our defense with 5 defenders, now take one away to a 4 atb and you think we wouldn't get punished?

We were let down by our WB's and WF's not getting on the ball and making things happen, we also could of used a Ceballos / Aouar next to Eleney for the whole game, Ceballos made a massive difference driving through Liverpools midfield, that pressure releases the flank players more as Liverpool get drawn into the attack from the centre.

The "I must play Xhaka at all costs" curse is one of the main downfalls yesterday, we needed to create more chances and we should of started Elneny / Ceballos, far superior ball carriers and even Ceballos has got excellent at nicking the ball from players feet.

[ag6789]

Wonder why Xhaka has become such a manager magnet. His repulsive qualities far outweigh his attractive ones.

[Salibatelli]

Gabriel and Ceballos should have started, possibly even Pepe.

We should have been more offensive, the defensive tactic might have worked in the past but it’s a bit of pot luck and requires the defence to be spot on.

We had enough pace and Liverpool are very attacking and this leave space behind their defence and that what you need to try and exploit, might not work but you’ve got more chance than sitting back and creating nothing. Not playing Gabriel was a shocker, I’m not going to lie, we should be playing him and also give Saliba a chance, he can’t be worse than the two last night.

I think we're setting up to be a more counter attacking side and we won't be a team that just holds possession in front of our opponents goal anymore.

The goal we scored against Liverpool was lucky but considering the build up from the back, the way we cut right through them, it's not the first time we've done that and we transition much faster on the breaks.

We seem to have a pattern of play to our attacks. It all seems deliberate and it's great to watch when we pull it off but it's not a consistent attack and spell of possession.

Agreed however we played the wrong team to counter attack IMO, pace and creativity are important in that scenario so Pepe and Ceballos made more sense to me.

No idea why Magalhaes didn’t play either. We barely created anything against Liverpool either which didn’t help.

[Angelito]

All this not having the right players is bullshit. Wenger played an attacking brand of football with Song, Arteta, Gervinho, Santos, Benayoun, and a chaotic Ramsey in 11/12.

We beat City, Chelsea, Spurs, and Liverpool that season. And we were a hair's breadth away from pulling off that comeback against Milan—a team that featured superstar Zlatan himself. We topped the UCL group stages that included Marseille and Dortmund.

Arsenal scored 74 goals in the League that season. We haven't scored as many goals since Wenger left although Unai's team came close with 73 goals. Even in the chaos of 17/18, we scored 74 goals—only behind City and Liverpool.

We finished 3rd in the League. That was the worst squad Wenger ever had.

We've scored 6, conceded 4 goals so far. That's not defensive solidarity. Leeds put 3 past Liverpool at Anfield and they sure as heck don't have Auba, Ceballos, Laca, Bellerin, and Pepe.

There are great things to come from Arteta. I'm sure. But the excuses that we don't have the players won't cut it. The players we're linked to aren't game changers like Ozil was when we signed him, or Alexis. The last world class player we signed was Auba and since then, we haven't signed a top class player, let alone a world class superstar.

If every manager needed world class or top-quality players in every position to be successful, they might as well rename themselves as Pep or Zidane. Arbitrarily speaking.

Mikel Arteta has more backing today than Wenger did ten years earlier because we have more money. In the zeal of novelty, let's not forget that Arteta has to deliver this season. His promise land is Mauricio Pochettino, not Jurgen Klopp.

[Godlop]

All this not having the right players is bullshit. Wenger played an attacking brand of football with Song, Arteta, Gervinho, Santos, Benayoun, and a chaotic Ramsey in 11/12.

They weren't great players but they could pass the ball well and dribble past players. Also the PL was like half as good as today.

[starmandb]

All this not having the right players is bullshit. Wenger played an attacking brand of football with Song, Arteta, Gervinho, Santos, Benayoun, and a chaotic Ramsey in 11/12.

We beat City, Chelsea, Spurs, and Liverpool that season. And we were a hair's breadth away from pulling off that comeback against Milan—a team that featured superstar Zlatan himself. We topped the UCL group stages that included Marseille and Dortmund.

Arsenal scored 74 goals in the League that season. We haven't scored as many goals since Wenger left although Unai's team came close with 73 goals. Even in the chaos of 17/18, we scored 74 goals—only behind City and Liverpool.

We finished 3rd in the League. That was the worst squad Wenger ever had.

We've scored 6, conceded 4 goals so far. That's not defensive solidarity. Leeds put 3 past Liverpool at Anfield and they sure as heck don't have Auba, Ceballos, Laca, Bellerin, and Pepe.

There are great things to come from Arteta. I'm sure. But the excuses that we don't have the players won't cut it. The players we're linked to aren't game changers like Ozil was when we signed him, or Alexis. The last world class player we signed was Auba and since then, we haven't signed a top class player, let alone a world class superstar.

If every manager needed world class or top-quality players in every position to be successful, they might as well rename themselves as Pep or Zidane. Arbitrarily speaking.

Mikel Arteta has more backing today than Wenger did ten years earlier because we have more money. In the zeal of novelty, let's not forget that Arteta has to deliver this season. His promise land is Mauricio Pochettino, not Jurgen Klopp.

We lost at home to liverpool in 11/12 and 8-2 at man utd
We also lost 2-1 at fulham.

[Power n Glory]

All this not having the right players is bullshit. Wenger played an attacking brand of football with Song, Arteta, Gervinho, Santos, Benayoun, and a chaotic Ramsey in 11/12.

We beat City, Chelsea, Spurs, and Liverpool that season. And we were a hair's breadth away from pulling off that comeback against Milan—a team that featured superstar Zlatan himself. We topped the UCL group stages that included Marseille and Dortmund.

Arsenal scored 74 goals in the League that season. We haven't scored as many goals since Wenger left although Unai's team came close with 73 goals. Even in the chaos of 17/18, we scored 74 goals—only behind City and Liverpool.

We finished 3rd in the League. That was the worst squad Wenger ever had.

We've scored 6, conceded 4 goals so far. That's not defensive solidarity. Leeds put 3 past Liverpool at Anfield and they sure as heck don't have Auba, Ceballos, Laca, Bellerin, and Pepe.

There are great things to come from Arteta. I'm sure. But the excuses that we don't have the players won't cut it. The players we're linked to aren't game changers like Ozil was when we signed him, or Alexis. The last world class player we signed was Auba and since then, we haven't signed a top class player, let alone a world class superstar.

If every manager needed world class or top-quality players in every position to be successful, they might as well rename themselves as Pep or Zidane. Arbitrarily speaking.

Mikel Arteta has more backing today than Wenger did ten years earlier because we have more money. In the zeal of novelty, let's not forget that Arteta has to deliver this season. His promise land is Mauricio Pochettino, not Jurgen Klopp.

The flip side of that argument is that we couldn't defend and Wenger couldn't organise a solid defence despite having years to build team after team.

The football stopped being as fluid and beautiful. We weren't pulling teams apart like we used to with our passing game. It turned into sterile possession where teams comfortably let us have the ball and just hit us on the counter to win the game. It gradually got worse, the passing got slower and we were soon struggling just to string passes together. Teams that pressed hard could stop us from even progressing passed the half way line. We were heavily dependent on individual brilliance to win us games.

It's a different Premier League now. Days of tika taka possession football isn't as effective. I think we Arsenal fans have gotten so use to that style of attacking football that it's hard to get our minds around a different form of attack. We can't be looking at what Wenger was doing 10 years ago and think that will work today. Heck, it didn't work in 2011/12 and we won nothing. The Premier League is a totally different beast now and we have the worlds best managers all coaching here.