Patience is a virtue, supposedly.

If so, it is not a virtue that has been much in evidence among the Arsenal faithful this season.

A significant proportion of the fan base has lost faith in Mikel Arteta as the man to lead us back to the heady heights of Champions League qualification and contending for the Premier League title.

And that’s a bit strange, because many of these were the same fans who were falling over themselves to talk (and write) about needing to “have patience” and “give it some time” when Arteta was first appointed.

Everyone recognised we were in a bit of a hole after experiencing humiliation in the Europa League final under Unai Emery and a subsequent collapse in form in the first half of the following season, so when Arteta became the youngest head coach in the EPL people seemed to take a philosophical approach to what was expected of him.

I saw many columns and comments along the lines of “we must accept there will be ups and downs along the way; it won’t all come right overnight; he’s a young manager who’ll have to learn on the job so let’s cut him some slack.”

There was not much cutting-of-slack as we tumbled tamely out of the Europa League semis and stumbled to an eighth place finish in the EPL, failing to qualify for Europe for the first time in a quarter of a century.

Perhaps Arteta is a victim of his own success.

By unexpectedly winning the FA Cup in his first half season in charge at Arsenal he may have convinced us that he really was the messiah and that good things would inevitably follow.

In fact what followed – in the first half of the season that has just finished – was very NOT good. At times it was as palatable as a bowl of vomit with a dandruff garnish.

It was obvious that Arteta was making mistakes (persisting with the abysmal Willian; tinkering with formations; failing to tackle a culture of inattentiveness and mistake-making). There was genuine cause to doubt whether he was the man for the job.

I suspect that patience first began to run out during that terrible losing run up to Christmas, in which we played 10, lost 7, drew 2 and won only 1 – taking 5 points from a possible 30. There was talk of relegation in the air and it did not seem particularly fanciful.

There were rumours Arteta was facing the boot and plenty of fans seemed happy (or at least unbothered) by the prospect.

But shouldn’t that have been exactly the time to remember what we had said when Arteta was appointed? How we assured ourselves at the start of his reign that there would be downs as well as ups?

Fortunately there was a genuine up side to come immediately after Christmas. From Boxing Day onwards we became more consistent, harder to beat and created more chances. Our form in the final 22 games of the season put us third in the EPL behind Manchester City and Manchester United across that period.

And yes, I know that it’s the league table across 38 games that counts, not across 22 games; but recency is important too.

If our form in the first half of the season had put us third and we then tailed off to eighth in the second half of the season, there would be serious grounds for concern because our trajectory would have been negative. This is what happened during the Unai Emery period: we started well under the Spaniard and got steadily worse.

But under Arteta the trajectory is positive. The recent form has been good. Not perfect by any means and certainly not attractive enough at times. But again, how many of us said when Arteta arrived “his first job is to shore up the defence and make us hard to score against.”? (Do you remember those games under Emery when even low ranking teams were clocking up 20-plus attempts on goal against us?).

Arteta has achieved that task – in fact you could say he has overachieved when you consider that, even including that terrible pre-Christmas run, our defence let in fewer goals over the season than any teams apart from Man City and Chelsea.

He also clearly identified some of the off-field problems at the club, leading to the ousting of Mustafi, Ozil, Sokratis, Kolasinac and Guendouzi. By all accounts London Colney has been a much happier and more united place since January.

To this writer’s mind, Arteta is doing exactly what we thought he would do when we hired him: have ups and downs; make mistakes; correct mistakes; but gradually put us on an upward path.

It may not feel like that given that we face the rarity of a season without European football, but we are progressing and Arteta deserves our continued patience.

You could reasonably suggest I am being too kind to him and that it was perfectly legitimate for people’s patience to run out at Christmas. There is no hard and fast rule for how long a “grace period” for a new manager should last, but I believe we – and Arteta – are still in it.

Mind you, next season – without the distraction of European games – if we are not mounting a serious challenge to be in the top four by Christmas then even my patience will finally be reaching the end of the road.

RockyLives

So Willock went to Newcastle in January, started tentatively there and then ended the season in fine form especially in fine scoring form…His good performances led to him winning the Player of the Month Award – well done to him!

As Willock left us for Newcastle, Odegaard joined us on loan from Real Madrid. He has shown courage and good ability as well both in keeping and passing the ball. Arteta seems to enjoy his work rate and attitude too.

On one hand, we have an academy product who has done exceptionally well on loan at Newcastle and on the other hand, we have another young player with great ability. What to do?

Willock is our player but it seems that Arteta had a hard time getting the most out of him. He clearly showed that he can do well in the EPL but maybe he needs a different system and coach to flourish OR maybe he is now ready to flourish with us too. What to do with him? Shall we keep him or sell him to the highest bidder?

Odegaard is poised to return to Madrid and with Zidane gone and apparently Ancelotti coming, it could be that Odegaard would be keen to take his chance and try to play for the Casa Blanca or he may be keen to stay with us in the EPL. If he wants to stay, I think Arteta would like to keep him but he ll cost a minimum of 30-35 Mln EUR, which may be a big chunk of our transfer budget…So what to do wit him? Shall we keep him or not?

And I did not talk about them but we also have Torreira and Guendouzi on our payroll but it seems we will listen to offers for both these players so no post on them..yet

As we (hopefully) approach the departure of my bete noir, and as an attempt to explain to some “what I see” of this anachronism, I thought I might be a bit controversial ahead of the Euros.

So… here is my list of pros and cons regarding Mr Xhaka:

I will start with pros (there are some, but IMO, they don’t make up for the cons):

1. Xhaka, given enough time, has a reasonable-to-good range of passing skills. He even has a powerful shot (on four occasions, anyway).

2. Xhaka is rarely injured and consequently plays many games in a season.

3. Xhaka has improved slightly his tackling skills in the second half of this season. About time, given how long he has been with us.

4. Xhaka seems to have convinced Mikel Arteta, Jose Moaninho, the recent managers of the Swiss team that he is an essential cog in their teams.

That’s it from me, I’m afraid, unless you wish to include, like Luiz, he seems to be a popular member of the squad.

And now to the Cons:

1. Xhaka is slow of thought and, especially, action. This means if he doesn’t get time on the ball he panics. This results in him either losing the ball or, sometimes worse, to use a phrase from my rugby days, in him “shovelling sh*t”. This means he passes to another player, usually on top of him, resulting in them losing it, and occasionally this season even leading directly to a goal against. 

2. Xhaka (although I have to admit he seems to have improved in this area as I said above) always has a last ditch ridiculous tackle in him. This used to happen in the box or as last man in defence with the inevitable consequences. 

3. Linked closely with the above, Xhaka doesn’t seem to know that quite apart from the referee and two linesmen/women, there are cameras all over the place watching him. When he makes a stupid tackle, pulls a player back or similar he screams “injustice”, “I didn’t do it guv”, “you must be be joking – I got the ball”! This not only pisses off referees (who get so much wrong) so that when they see something they know is right, they say to themselves, “I’ll remember you for the future.”

4. Again linked, the above behaviour can have a detrimental effect on immature young players. This was particularly evident with Guendouzi, who, in my opinion, often copied Xhaka’s lead in the time he was at the Club.

5. Xhaka likes to use the “professional tricks of the trade”, so despised by me especially. His current one, when trapped with the ball by an opposition press, usually close to the touch line, is to flop down on top of the ball like a grounded dolphin, suggesting he has been brutally assaulted sexually from behind.

6. Despite his lack of injuries, resulting in regular selection, he tires dramatically in the last quarter of the game, and is rarely able to cover back successfully against on-rushing opposition. At this point he is good at pointing to others to do the job, or even balling them out when a poor outcome ensues.

7. Xhaka, doesn’t really have a right foot, so – especially when on the left side of defence – he turns inwards (always) and perpetuates that awful “horseshoe” tactic, I also so despise.

That’s where I’ll leave it AAers. You gather, using my own eyes, rather than Moaninho’s one, that I don’t rate the man much.

Apart from his disrespect of the Club and captaincy on being sent off, I don’t have anything against the man per se, and wish him best of luck at Roma and with Moaninho, GHH.

LBG

Here are the players that are currently in our squad as CBs:

1. Holding
2. Gabriel
3. Mari
4. Mavropanos
5. Saliba

We also know that Chambers, Tierney and even Xhaka could play there.

So we have five CBs and then three players that can play CB if needed, including two defenders. So technically, we have a lot of CB options.

We should keep 4 CBs as part of our rotation (knowing that Chambers or Tierney could play there if needed) and it seems that Holding, Gabriel and Mari are all staying so who should be our fourth one?

A. Mavropanos who had a good season in Germany.

B. Saliba who had a good run at Nice although nothing stellar either.

C. A new face.

If we decide to keep only 4 CBs (which makes sense tbh), we have a few options:

1. Sell/loan Mavro, sell/loan Saliba and bring in a CB
2. Keep Mavro, loan/sell Saliba
3. Keep Saliba, loan/sell Mavro

My inkiling is that Arteta will want five CBs in the end and may keep either Mavro or Saliba and bring in an experienced CB in the squad.

If we need liquidity, then Mavro will be sold… tough choices regarding Mavro and Saliba. For me, Saliba needs another loan but in the EPL…

What are your thoughts?

RC78

Thanks to everyone who voted in this week’s series of polls to select our Players of the Season in a number of different categories.

We had hundreds of votes in every poll and some fascinating results.

In each case I will give the top three players and the percentage of the vote they received. There’s no need to publish the lower end of the scoring, although you may be interested to know that every player in every category got at least some votes: yes, some people even voted Willian our Attacking Player of the Year. It takes all sorts I suppose.

So let’s start with the big one:

Player of the Season

Winner: BUKAYO SAKA – 55%

Runner-up: Kieran Tierney – 9%

Third Equal: Granit Xhaka/Nicolas Pepe – 8%

Congratulations to Bukayo. It’s hard to argue with that result. He has been outstanding this season and even when he seemed tired towards the end of the campaign he still managed to make telling contributions. When you think about how young he is you can only be excited about where he can go from here.

And to add to his garlands, let’s move on to the next category:

Young Player of the Season

Winner: BUKAYO SAKA – 51%

Runner-up: Emile Smith Rowe – 35%

Third: Kieran Tierney – 10%

At least the next category will give someone else a look in – Saka was not among the nominees for this one.

Most Improved Player of the Season

Winner: NICOLAS PEPE – 53%

Runner-up: Rob Holding – 17%

Third Equal: Granit Xhaka/Calum Chambers – 9%

It seemed to take Nico a long time to convince Mikel Arteta to have faith in him, but his contribution in the second half of the season was very good. He can be lethal cutting in from the wings and shooting with great accuracy. His two goals in the final game of the season against Brighton were perfect examples, both placed with power rather than blasted with hope. He could be huge for us next season if this upturn in his form continues.

Now we move on to the most popular players in the three areas of defence, midfield and attack.

Defensive Player of the Season

Winner: KIERAN TIERNEY – 55%

Runner-up: Rob Holding – 21%

Third: Gabriel – 7%

No big surprises here. Tierney has rapidly established himself as one of the best fullbacks in the EPL. Rob Holding’s second place is fair reward for a mostly solid and consistent season despite playing alongside a constantly changing rota of CB partners.

Midfield Player of the Season

Winner: BUKAYO SAKA – 47%

Runner-up: Emile Smith Rowe – 24%

Third: Granit Xhaka – 19%

Saka again, but it’s nice to see a lot of votes for ESR, who is my favourite player to watch in the current squad. Xhaka gets deserved recognition for a strong and consistent second half of the campaign.

Attacking Player of the Season

Winner: NICOLAS PEPE – 52%

Runner-up: Alexandre Lacazette – 34%

Third: Gabriel Martinelli – 9%

I wonder how many people would have predicted at Christmas that the Ivorian would be the fans’ attacking player of the season by the end of May? Not many, that’s for sure. The unproductive Willian occupied the space that should have been Pepe’s for the first half of the season but Nico certainly seized his chance when he got back into the first team rotation.

So, a great night at the Arsenal Oscars for Bukayo Saka and Nicolas Pepe, with Kieran Tierney also getting among the honours.

Happy with the results? Outraged? The comment section is there to capture your thoughts…

RockyLives

Welcome to the last day of voting for Arsenal Arsenal‘s players of the season.

In recent days you have been given the chance to vote for our player of the year in each of the three main categories (Defence, Midfield, Attack). If you have not yet cast your vote in those polls you can still do so – you can find them in ‘recent posts’.

Today it’s time to vote for our overall Player of the Season, as well as Young Player (23 and under) and Most Improved Player.

For these categories I have taken the liberty of compiling shortlists of players whom I think can be realistically considered for the various honours, even if some of them are a bit of a long shot. If your favourite player has not been listed I apologise, but feel free to remonstrate with me in the comments.

For example – and possibly controversially – I have not included Saka, ESR and Tierney in the “most improved” category because the season before last was their first real season of playing and they did not have a full season then, either through injury or not being regular members of the first team squad, so comparisons don’t really work.

Bear in mind for all the votes that we are considering players’ performances in this season only, so please try and put heroics and disasters from previous seasons out of your mind.

Results from all this week’s polls will be published tomorrow.

Have at it.

RockyLives

Today is your chance to vote for our Attacking Player of the Season.

Perhaps the toughest category for a clear-cut winner… but maybe not, it all depends on how we all vote.

You can still vote for Defensive and Midfield Players of the Season by visiting the Posts from yesterday and Tuesday (you can find them in the ‘recent posts’ menu on the right).

Feel free to discuss the options in comments. And if you feel compelled to vote for Willian please seek help immediately.

Tomorrow we’ll vote for overall Player of the Year, Young Player of the Year and Most Improved Player of the Year.

The results for all the polls will be published on Saturday.

RockyLives

Welcome to Day Two of our ‘Players of the Season’ series of polls.

We started yesterday with Defensive Player of the Season (if you missed it you can still vote by visiting that post).

Today we move onto the midfield. Please don’t complain if you think players have been listed in the wrong category: all designations have been taken from the official Arsenal website.

Tomorrow we move on to Attacking Player of the Season. Then on Friday we’ll have Overall Player of the Season, Young Player and Most Improved Player.

Results will be published on Saturday.

Have fun.

RockyLives

I don’t suppose any of us loved the Premier League season 2020/21, but now it’s gone, along with its empty stadiums, daft Euro Super League, terrible VAR decisions, crappy pre-Christmas Arsenal run and much more.

So now we can reflect on how our players did during the campaign and vote for our favourites in a series of polls here on Arsenal Arsenal.

Whether you’re a regular or just dropping in today you are welcome to vote for our Defensive, Midfield and Attacking Players of the Year as well as our Overall Player of the Year, Young Player of the Year and Most Improved Player.

Today we start with the Defensive Player of the Year (including goalies, although in practice that just means Leno, given that Runarsson and Ryan did not play enough games to be considered).

Tomorrow we’ll move on to Midfield, then the Attackers on Thursday.

On Friday we’ll vote for Overall Player of the Year, Young Player of the Year and Most Improved Player.

The results will be published on Saturday.

Feel free to debate the options in comments.

Enjoy….

RockyLives

Our recent good form continued into the final day of the season with a well deserved home win over Brighton & Hove Albion in front of 10,000 noisy fans.

Two beautifully taken Nicolas Pepe goals secured the three points although a scoreline of 4-0 or 5-0 would not have unduly flattered us.

We also dodged a bullet by not qualifying for the Europa No-Hoper Conference competition. Results elsewhere meant that it will be Totteringham who will be trooping off to Montenegro and Latvia on Thursday nights, while we stay home and focus 100% on the Premier League and domestic cups.

It would have been nice to celebrate St Totteringham’s Day, but not at the cost of having to enter a competition with a minuscule financial upside, a laughable prize for the winner and a serious potential for disruption. By May next year the Spuds will quite likely be rueing those two late goals against Leicester.

Another benefit of not having to compete in a Euro competition is that we will not need such a bloated squad so we can clear out the unwanted and fringe players and focus on a really high quality nucleus, much of which is already in place.

Arteta made a couple of changes from the team that beat Chelsea, giving Saka a well deserved rest and bringing Xhaka back in for Elneny. Aubameyang was up front again ahead of Pepe, Odegaard and Smith Rowe.

The home crowd were in great voice and were happy to let Josh Kroenke (who was attending) know what they thought of his family’s stewardship of our club.

Despite the atmosphere Brighton started on the front foot and it took 10 minutes or so before Arsenal got into gear. After that it was mostly one way traffic. Odegaard and Smith Rowe came close to unlocking the Seagulls’ defence; Tierney fizzed a great cross through the six yard box but none of our forwards had gambled on being on the end of it.

We thought we had the breakthrough in the 31st minute when Holding poked the ball home from a corner but he was correctly flagged for offside.

There was little threat at the other end but we had a narrow escape when Smith Rowe dwelt on the ball on the half way line and had it pinched off him. A three-on-two break in Brighton’s favour was fortunately snuffed out by the alert Tierney.

Just before half time Gabriel sent a looping header onto the crossbar: it was an inch away from being a goal, but we trooped off at half time still on level terms.

Five minutes after the restart the in-form Pepe put us ahead, controlling a Chambers pass and firing home through the Brighton keeper’s legs.

Ten minutes later Pepe got his second, picking up the ball from Odegaard on the right wing and cutting inside before slotting home low in the far corner. What I liked about both of Pepe’s goals was that he didn’t just blast them: in each case he chose his spot and slotted him with laser-like accuracy. Forget the ludicrous price tag, the Pepe we have seen in the second half of the season can be a big asset in the next campaign.

The match played out with Arsenal fully in control. Aubameyang was set free down the left but sliced his shot well wide; Thomas Partey was unlucky not to get his first Arsenal goal when Xhaka rifled a pass into him in the Brighton box. Partey’s control and instant shot were top class, but the ball came back off the bar.

In the final 15 minutes Saka, Lacazette and Martinelli all got the chance to come on and feel the love of the crowd, as did the players they replaced (Smith Rowe, Aubameyang and Odegaard) who all got standing ovations.

In the end we had 16 attempts on goal (five on target) and 11 corners in an attacking display. There has been criticism of our lack of creativity under Arteta but there was plenty of creativity and attacking intent yesterday.

We end the season with the same league position as last time (eighth) but with five more points.

Perhaps more importantly, we have seen an indisputable improvement in results since Christmas – a 24 game run of W14-D5-L5 since Boxing Day. The Arteta critics don’t want to hear it, but that’s solid Top Four form and bodes well for the coming season. It’s a return of 1.95 points per game which, if sustained across a full season, would give us 74 points (the same total that was good enough to get Manchester United the runners-up spot this time round).

A relatively small number of key signings, added to the talented young players who have come into their own this year, could see us being even more competitive next time.

Player Ratings

Leno – 7

Not too busy, but looked confident playing out from the back and dealt well with crosses.

Chambers – 7

Typically reliable. I would not be unhappy with Chambo getting a run at the RB slot next season.

Holding – 7

It’s becoming almost boring to keep saying how solid and reliable Holding is. An underrated player.

Gabriel – 7

Love his power and speed. Like Holding he was unlucky not to get on the scoresheet. A good performance.

Tierney – 7.5

Alert and decisive at the back; always dangerous going forward. Great player.

Partey – 7

A good game from Thomas. He seems to be ironing out his issues with misplaced passing and looked dominant in midfield at times. Also unlucky not to score (he had two good shots which did not take the usual Row Z trajectory, much to everyone’s astonishment).

Xhaka – 7.5

A tidy, accomplished performance. When he plays like this Xhaka is a real asset.

Pepe – 8

The boy has an eye for goal. He was involved for most of the game and never stops trying to take on defenders. It’s frustrating at times because inevitably he will lose the ball in some of the attempts, but you need players doing this to break the lines and Nico has been doing it well in recent outings.

Odegaard – 8.5 (MoTM)

Pulled all the strings in the CAM position. A really good game from the young man. It may well have been his last appearance in an Arsenal shirt but I would be pleased if we were able to keep him.

Smith Rowe – 7.5

Another dynamic, progressive outing from ESR.

Aubameyang – 6

It’s just not happening for the captain at the moment.

SUBS

Saka – 7

Lacazette – 7

Martinelli – 7

RockyLives