What a strange world it is when you find yourself celebrating the return of Thursday night Eurotrash footy.

But given our Premier League woes of late, the Europa League has felt like a positive distraction. Hell, we’ve even scored some goals (nine in three games).

And tonight we’re away in Norway, playing our return fixture against Molde, who were the best of our opponents so far. I had thought Vienna would be the potential threat to us topping our group but Molde had a lot more about them.

They went a goal up against us at the Emirates and the eventual 4-1 score line in our favour flattered us (there were two own goals in the mix).

Although there will undoubtedly be a lot of changes from the team that Mikel Arteta would pick for a EPL game, I hope El Patron uses the opportunity to set us up in an attacking way and go for some goals. 

It’s a chance for him to experiment with a more progressive formation, which he must surely be contemplating for the Premier League team as well.

The team news is that Elneny and Kolasinac are both still quarantined (although asymptomatic) as a Covid precaution; Saka, Partey and Willian have not travelled to Norway because of injuries, although the latter did fly to Antarctica to open a nightclub. OK, I made that bit up.

However David Luiz has travelled, following the birth of his baby daughter. 

Victory would give us 12 points out of 12 and more or less guarantee that we top the group but I don’t see this being an easy game. I could see a 1-0 or 2-1 score line in Arsenal’s favour if we don’t sit back too much.

The Pepe question is an interesting one: Arteta seemed really angry with him after his red card at Leeds, but given that he is banned for three games in the Prem, surely it makes sense to use him against Molde and save someone else’s legs?

I would not be totally surprised to see Lacazette start (El Patron perhaps hoping to kick start a goal scoring run from the Frenchman), but I have gone with a line-up that I prefer.

Also, it would be great to see Emile Smith-Rowe get a full game in a playmaker role. A lot of Arsenal supporters have pinned their hopes on ESR as the answer to our lack of creativity. It may be asking too much of a very young and inexperienced player (certainly at EPL level) but we’ll never know unless we play him.

Here’s my stab at the line-up:

Runarsson

Soares – Mustafi – Luiz – Tierney

Willock – Xhaka – AMN

Smith-Rowe

Pepe –  Nketiah 

Come On You Gunners.

RockyLives

It is impossible to deny that we have a serious problem with creating chances and scoring goals.

We haven’t netted from open play in the Premier League for what seems like eons.

We make fewer chances than a rigged slot machine and when we do get a sniff of goal we’re firing more blanks than the waiting room at the men’s fertility clinic.

So what’s the answer?

The debate so far has centred on whether Aubameyang should be played as a central striker, but surely that’s not the only possible route to fixing our problem?

What about more radical solutions?

My first thought was to wonder whether there is a way we can bring Mesut Ozil back into the squad. I don’t know how strict the Premier League rules are, but I suspect that we would not be able to change our final squad list unless we were hit by exceptional circumstances (like half the squad going down with Covid).

Right now the German would surely add something to our goal threat, but I fear that that horse has bolted (and we don’t need to revisit the Ozil debate again).

Nevertheless, the key surely has to be in midfield. Yes, our strikers have all had their boots on the wrong feet this season, but they have been given so few opportunities that it’s hard for them to get their eye in.

So who, in our squad, has the ability to play as a Number 10? Some regulars here are keen for Emile Smith-Rowe to be given a chance. I confess I have seen very little of the lad, but right now I’d play Mel Smith ahead of Willian if he was (a) alive and (b) available.

And with what we’re currently getting from Willian, Pepe, Lacazette and Ceballos in particular it’s tempting to say why not just go all-in on youth and give ESR, Willock, Nelson, AMN and Nketieh a proper run as starters.

The other potential contender for No 10 has to be Saka. The kid is a revelation (when he came on against Leeds at the weekend we immediately looked a better team even though we were down to 10 men).

Could Bukayo work in the playmaker role? He is relatively inexperienced for such a responsibility but surely it has to be worth a try. He seems to have the skill, determination and vision.

Another hope on the (not too distant) horizon is the return to fitness of Gabriel Martinelli. The Brazilian showed great potential in his debut season last year and, again, surely merits a chance ahead of Willian or Pepe in the wide roles. He could also potentially play in the centre forward position (we have seen how good he is in the air).

And this brings me to one of my favourite ideas: that we revert to an old fashioned 4-4-2, with a front two of Aubameyang plus one. The ‘one’ would need to be more physically dominant that Auba. Eddie might be able to do it in time; Lacazette just isn’t mobile enough… but when Martinelli gets back to match fitness he could be the answer.

In my fantasy 4-4-2 we have Auba and Martinelli up front, Saka and Nelson/Pepe as the wingers and Partey plus Elneny/Xhaka in the middle.

For a more traditional approach, maybe Ceballos could be tried at No 10 when Partey is back in the team. It would mean sacrificing a wide player, so we have a midfield of Partey and Elneny/Xhaka, with Ceballos in an advanced role behind a front two of Auba/Laca or Auba/Eddie or Auba/Martinelli. I’m not sure that Ceballos really has it in him to pull off that role, but it may be worth a try.

A couple of final ideas:

Attempt to fix our creativity problem from deep by playing Luiz in midfield or as one of three CBs, but with licence to roam forward and spray those passes around.

Play Xhaka and Elneny at the base of midfield, with Partey ahead of them and relieved of some of his defensive responsibilities. In this role Partey would be free to burst forward and break the lines, creating opportunities for others and himself, Aaron Ramsey style.

The final option is we go big in the January transfer window for a playmaker like Houssem Aouar, whom we tried to sign in the summer.

OK, over to you: what would be your radical solution to our creativity problems?

RockyLives

Playing devil’s advocate I think a draw away at Leeds playing almost half the game a man down would not be so bad had it had not come on the back of that previous game with Villa, and if Spuds were not in such good form. 

This all adds to the angst but we are still only seven points away. A win at Villa and a draw against Leicester, which should have been quite achievable, would see us only three behind the leaders having already played at Anfield, the Etihad and Old Trafford. Small margins eh.

I was happy to see us move to a back four because the team needs this. Despite what the weekend threw up we still need that move to a back four for us to progress, and we shouldn’t make a knee jerk reaction away from it after one game against tricky opposition with much of it played with 10 men. We are kind of entering another transition phase. 

Our defence and work off the ball has improved immeasurably but now we need to find the flair and increased goal threat to go with it. Arteta hasn’t got every call right to date and has maybe misjudged when to make the changes in the transition, but the most successful managers have had tough periods when their credentials have been called into question, and I still massively believe he will move us on. 

Don’t forget that he inherited a massively dysfunctional squad with little confidence and no identity. You can’t correct every aspect of the side in one hit from there, and he is likely doing the right thing by making us tougher to beat as a first port of call, even if not that pretty on the eye at present.

I still feel that we need a four pronged goal threat to really kick on. That comes from the No 9, the No 10 and the two wing forwards. Again I will say that I feel that the two wing forwards need to be, for the most part, inverted wide players to increase our goal threat, in other words a left footer on the right and vice versa to the left. Add a number 10 who can create and score in front of two DM’s and you have a potent attack while still retaining defensive solidity.

Regarding Leeds, most teams that come up into the EPL from the championship need to adapt from a more functional way of playing to a style with more guile and quality. Not so Biesla’s Leeds who were already being groomed as an EPL side even while battling their way out of the championship. They arrived already playing like an EPL quality side and have proven to be tough opposition for other bigger clubs as well before this weekend.

I took a few things away from this game: 

Firstly how much better and more comfortable Auba is when getting on the ball in deeper areas rather than holding the high central line where he sees less of the ball.

His game is not best suited to holding the ball up with back to goal with defenders on his back and with fewer touches on the ball. He is far better suited to getting on the ball more in deeper areas and receiving the ball going through on goal. I think the attacking left wing forward position is the right one for him and we just need to get the rest of the forward line formation right to get him firing.

This means he needs the right No 9 to cover that work up top and act as a link player with him. Do we have that player in Laca or Eddie? Not sure. The most ideal type of striker would be a Lewandowski type. Laca isn’t as bad as many believe and he kind of does a bit of a Firmino job for us up top, operating as the foil even if not scoring himself. Eddie has that eye for goal so should also get a big look in. Putting Auba up top is not the answer to our issues and he should play off one of the other two mentioned.

Secondly we need to get Saka playing higher up the pitch. That goal scoring opportunity wasn’t as easy as it seemed. The ball already took him wide narrowing down his angle past the keeper, and really the keeper did well rather than Saka doing badly.

However, the ability of Saka to get through on goal should mean we look to get him playing a role that allows him to do this more often. The 4-2-3-1 is right but I think Mikel still needs to find his best combinations in this formation and maybe Saka should be considered for the number 10 role, or be in competition with Pepe as the inverted right side attacker. 

Pepe could, however, still become a big player for us and needs to be handled well after his fall from grace, but Saka should fill in that position in his absence in the EPL games. 

So I think the biggest questions are who plays No 9 and who plays the attacking CM / No 10 role, with the biggest question being on the No 10 / ACM role.

In reality I would like to see Auba, Saka and Pepe line up from left to right behind either Laca or Eddie with Partey + one other sitting behind.

GoonerB

Any complaints that we left Elland Road with only a point yesterday?

I didn’t think so.

We were second best for much of the game, we played with 10 men from the 51st minute, Leeds hit the woodwork three times and Leno had to make some outstanding saves.

So, all in all, a point is not to be sniffed at. And it gives El Patron a bit of breathing space to try and figure out solutions to our obvious problems.

If we had lost the chorus of negativity (currently registering about the same decibels as a lively night at the local folk club) would have hit AC/DC stadium concert level.

Yesterday we saw a team still shellshocked and nervous from the spanking we suffered at the hands of Aston Villa two weeks earlier. Caution was always going to be the order of the day.

Added to that psychological handicap, we were also lacking what may well be our first choice central midfield pairing of Elneny (Covid) and Partey (thigh strain).

And we must remember that Arteta had barely any time to work with most of his first team players because they were all away on international duty.

Nevertheless, he made some interesting changes to our starting line-up, bringing Willock into the team and giving a start to Pepe. Xhaka and Ceballos were the natural choices for central midfield given our absentees and the defence seems to be picking itself these days.

I was disappointed to see Willian start after his poor recent form, but Arteta has shown he can rehabilitate players on whom many of us had given up, so why not the moptop Brazilian?

I watched the game on a variable stream so there were parts that I missed, but overall I took away the following points:

Our defence is not in bad shape and the three goals conceded to Villa were an aberration.

We are still striving to find a midfield that works to create chances.

Consequently we create very few chances.

Leeds were on top for much of the game but it never felt like we were being dominated..

Our forwards are all shorn of touch, confidence and good decision making.

Normally a sending off can be described as a turning point in a game, but Pepe’s red card did not change things much at all. We created our best moments when we were down to 10 men and – crazy though it seems when they hit the post and crossbar three times – we restricted Leeds to few clearcut chances.

I have read a lot of comments from people slagging off Pepe, but I think we have enough of an idea of the guy to know that that was very out of character, and we don’t know what the Leeds muppet was saying or doing to provoke such a reaction.

It’s unfortunate, but it happens. Interestingly the officials who were so keen to take their time with the VAR for that incident had no such issues when there appeared to be a clear handball in our favour in the Leeds box late on.

In the end a point was probably more than we deserved, but we could even have nicked all three if Saka had put away a really good one-on-one chance after a splendid run and through ball from Bellerin. Saka tried to go round the ‘keeper when a more instinctive striker would have taken it first time.

Plenty of work for El Patron, but a couple of positive results will change the mood very quickly.

If we beat Wolves in our next league game I fancy our chances of bursting the Spuds’ bubble when we visit the Armitage Shanks Arena a week later.

RockyLives

Player Ratings from RC78

Leno 8 – our MOTM
Bellerin 6 – nothing too good but nothing too bad either
Holding 7 – did well
Gabriel 8 – clearly a solid defender
Tierney 7 – did well but shy going forward even when we were 11
Pepe 3 – sloppy match for him and a stupid dismissal
Xhaka 7 – a solid performance
Ceballos 5 – not a worthy starter
Willock 6 – willing and tried but not enough edge going forward or defensively
Willian 4 – a ghastly appearance
Auba 5 – where is last year’s Auba?

Saka 6 – a good game until the injury and he could/should have put us one nil up.
Nelson 6 – added pace and trickery

My word, the Premier League table makes for ugly reading this morning.

Not that I can get too worked up about seeing the N17 reprobates up in nosebleed territory.

Their supporters have a near-60 year history of getting over excited and they’ve experienced more false Dawns than RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Let them start celebrating as if they are certs to win the league; let them keep harping on about how the current season finishes in 2021 and that they always win things in a year “that ends in a 1” (a tradition that conveniently overlooks the years 1891, 1911, 1931, 1941, 1971, 2001 and 2011). Let’s just remind them that the Arsenal likes to win things in years that start with a 1, or a 2.

The toxic combination of the EPL’s nastiest club and the EPL’s nastiest manager will bring about its own inevitable downfall, even if the poison turns out to be the slow working variety.

Aside from the Spuds, all the other results yesterday were not great from an Arsenal perspective. Manchester United and Chelsea both won. Meanwhile Aston Villa, whom we had made look like champions-in-waiting, were beaten at home by lowly Brighton.

We are in real danger of being left behind if we don’t start putting a run of results together soon.

It has been very up and down so far, with encouraging wins (Man Utd away) being interspersed with frustrating losses (Leicester and Villa at home). However, for all the frustration of flip-flopping between victories and defeats it’s worth remembering that from a points perspective it’s better to win one and lose one than to have two draws, even though the latter allows you to feel good about being undefeated.

Leeds at Elland Road will be no pushover. They have had some good results already this season and have an impressive manager.

We have team selection issues through injury (Partey is still out and Elneny and Kolasinac tested positive for Covid) and possible exhaustion of players used very heavily on international duty (Saka and Tierney played a lot of minutes while Aubameyang ended up sleeping on an airport floor in Africa).

But our biggest issue remains the same: we’re just not creating chances. El Patron has had two weeks to try and figure out how to rectify that problem, even if he has had to do so without most of his squad.

Will he start Aubameyang down the middle as so many have been demanding? I suspect not. But I do expect changes. Here’s the line-up I think we might see:

Leno

Bellerin – Holding – Gabriel – Tierney

Maitland-Niles – Xhaka – Ceballos

Pepe – Nketiah – Aubameyang

I will be extremely disappointed if Willian is in the starting eleven. He has been awful all season apart from the opening day victory over Fulham and against Aston Villa he was worse than awful.

A win today will restore some belief.

Come on you Reds.

RockyLives

As the international break rumbles on, I thought you might enjoy a ‘thought experiment’ that I have played with my mates in the pub on occasion.

It tests how your allegiance to The Arsenal compares with your support for the England national team.

If you’re not English, please substitute your own national side for the boys with the three lions on their shirt.

It’s pretty simple and comes down to a series of questions to which the first part is always: “Would you rather England win the next World Cup or…”

Have at it.

RockyLives

As the international break is coming to an end soon and as we edge closer to seeing club football again, I tried to reflect on which player has been our stand out performance this season so far. I came up with a preliminary short-list and please feel free to add more names and/or disagree:

Saka – This young man has been nothing short of phenomenal since he has broken into the first team. He is of course still learning but his work rate, decision-making and ability to attack with poise and create chances have impressed me.

Tierney – His work rate and the quality of his delivery are truly impressive and the best thing is that he is still improving. He has played well at LCB and at LB. A solid start of the season.

Gabriel – Who would have thought our summer signing from Lille would bring defensive physicality and solidity from his first start? Impressive start to a Gunner’s life.

El Neny – Seen by many (including myself) as a definite goner, he has come back with energy, enthusiasm and real purpose to end the opponent’s progression towards our goal. Mismanaged before or just a change in form due to better physical condition? Whatever the reason is, he appears to be the first name on the sheet in the middle of the park next to Partey.

So who is your MVP so far? The omission of Aubameyang, Lacazette, Nketiah, Pepe, Willian, Ceballos would be explained by our lack of attacking edge and creativity so far this season but feel free to convince me that they are our MVP so far 😛

Hope everyone is safe and sound. Good luck everyone.

PS: Saka did well yesterday against Belgium but Grealish and Kane were really amazing. Shame that England won’t make the Final Four of the League of Nations.

Psychologists identify the stages we go through when grieving. It’s how we come to terms with terrible loss such as the death of a loved-one or the break-up of a cherished relationship.

The stages are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.

Football supporters spend an inordinate amount of time grieving, but ours is a very particular kind of grief and our ‘5 Stages’ are different: we go through them much more quickly… and much more often.

I have been pondering this since the humbling home defeat at the hands of Aston Villa.

In that game we were not only out-played, out-thought and out-fought, we did not even look like a team of players who gave a toss. Worrying indeed.

But time, as they say, is a great healer. With the perspective of almost a week I have a different view of that defeat. I suppose I have been through the 5 Stages of Footballing Grief:

1. Delusional Optimism: a supporter’s grief cannot exist without this pre-requisite. No matter how bad things are we go into pretty much every game thinking we might win. Even those of our friends who relish being the voice of doom before every match (“I’ve bet on the opposition to win 4-0”) are only doing that because they care too much to admit their secret hopes. No matter how unfancied a team, its supporters will always think they have a chance “if we get a bit of luck… if everyone plays out of their skin… if the opponents’ best player pulls a hammy…” Welling United versus Barcelona? The Welling fans will be saying: “If we keep 10 men behind the ball and try and get one from a set piece… you never know.”
2. Disbelief: inevitably following on from No. 1, Disbelief kicks in when our optimism does indeed turn out to have been delusional. This second stage usually occurs after the final whistle but has been known to set in by half time or, in severe cases, within minutes of the kick off. An embarrassing defeat, hopes shattered, old faults returning like a recurring dose of diarrhoea… all these symptoms lead to that overpowering sense of “WTF? How could this have happened? I thought we’d sorted out our defence? This same starting eleven did so well only a week ago to beat XYZ…”
3. Scapegoating: this is the football fan’s version of “Anger” in the traditional 5 Stages of Grief. We don’t just get angry. We get angry and almost immediately flip into saying: “It was HIS fault!”. The HIM in question could be anyone from the manager to the owners, the goalkeeper, the dodgy centre back, the goal shy striker or the mysteriously underperforming “world class creative player.” Arsenal fans are particularly fond of Stage 3. Over the years Denilson, Eboue, Fabianski, Almunia, Gallas, Mustafi, Xhaka, Luiz, Ozil, Walcott and others too many to mention have been ushered into the great Arsenal FC Goat Enclosure.
4. Over-reaction: once we have gotten through slagging off the culprit, we pivot quite quickly into utter catastrophism. We’ve had a bad performance and result? Oh God! We need a complete rebuild… we need to sell everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, even that stupid dinosaur bloke… Champions League spots? Do me a favour, we’re in a relegation battle… This is the worst Arsenal team I’ve ever seen and I’ve been supporting them since the Woolwich days… we need a new manager. Perhaps the most acute form of this condition (which thankfully emerges in only a minority of Grief sufferers) is: “I told you we should have got Mourinho.”
5. Depression: the only one that we share with the traditional 5 Stages, although in our case it comes last, not second from last. We have usually managed to get through all the previous four stages within 24 hours of kick off and that’s when Depression kicks in. We have moved past catastrophism (we don’t really believe we’re going to get relegated) but there’s just a dull sense of disappointment and a nagging certainty that this season is going nowhere. Worse, we know that being an Arsenal supporter is a condition you’re stuck with for life, like webbed toes or sticky-out ears, so there’s no escape.

If this seems depressing I don’t mean it to be and there is, in fact, a silver lining.

Football’s great gift to the soul is that a new game comes round every few days (or every couple of weeks in the event of an irritating international break). And when a new game is on the horizon, we pretty quickly leave Stage 5 behind us and… yes, you’ve guessed it… we return to Delusional Optimism.

So, coming back to the Villa game, I have now gone through all five stages. After our win at Old Trafford my Delusional Optimism convinced me we would spank the Brummies; I sat open-mouthed with Disbelief as Grealish, Barkley and Watkins gave us a lesson in how to play effective, attractive football; I flipped instantly into Scapegoating Willian, whom I deemed to be our worst performer on a day of dreadful performances; I Over-reacted by harbouring thoughts such as “Arteta must have lost the dressing room” and “perhaps we are just a mid- to low-table team,” and, finally, I sank into the Depression of realising that this year’s Arsenal weren’t going to be what I hoped they would be and that it’s probably ridiculous to be dreaming of Top Four finishes.

But a week has passed and already I am starting to fantasise about the solutions Mikel Arteta has come up with while most of his players have been away on duty for their countries; I’m imagining the desire the team will have to put right the obvious aberration of the Villa performance; I am picturing us going to Elland Road and thrashing Leeds United, followed by a quick jaunt to Norway to crush the upstarts of Molde.

Delusional Optimism? You bet, but I love it.

RockyLives

Rocky’s post on Tuesday asked an excellent question with some fine comments (is there one squad player who could be brought into the first team set up to really make a difference?).

It’s a great question but I do struggle to name one player to bring in that I feel will have a seismic impact on our recent performances.

I do like AMN but also like ESR, Willock and Nelson, so maybe I am more in the LBG camp of playing our young players a bit more than we have. I similarly struggle to identify one player not at the club (that we could realistically get) that could also make a massive difference to us if pinged into our current line up at the expense of one other player.

For me the thing that makes the seismic difference is the formation which I look at in two ways: 1) the actual formation, i.e 4-4-2, 3-4-3, 4-3-3 e.t.c and 2) the positions of the players in that formation.

I thought we had a really good transfer window that gave us extra options to progress from what was more of a line up of necessity last season. It served us well at the tail end of last season where we played those tougher opponents.

Not to pick a fight with RC in relation to his comments, but I don’t feel the 3-4-3 should be our go-to formation now and should mainly be reserved for only a couple of opponents.

I like this formation even less when both the wing backs and wing forwards play on the same side as their stronger foot. It reduces our goal threat exponentially and makes all of those wide players more of a delivery player from the flank. However you need different strikers for that to work like a Giroud or Drogba.

The 3-4-3 seems a good formation against a (currently) superior attacking side that will push onto us and play a high defensive line. It is designed for containment and counter attack. It could be made more attacking by having inverted wing backs as well as inverted wing forwards.

For instance if you had Saka and Pepe playing the right flanks and AMN and Auba playing the left you get the option of the overlapping wing back with the wing forward coming infield onto their dangerous foot, or that the wing backs themselves can cut infield to a shooting position and receive the ball on their stronger foot in a role reversal.

We should really though be moving onto something that gets us more on the front foot and increases our goal threat in different positions, and that is the 4-3-3 or a variant on it (most likely 4-2-3-1).

The big key here is we retain the front three but get an extra attacking CM to play between the other two midfielders and the front three.

The bigger question for me is which player should we get to play that position? Willian on the right is a busted flush at this stage with the types of forwards we have not suiting what he can offer from there, but he could be an excellent “experienced” option in the attacking CM role.

Both ESR and Willock could develop really well in the position but my favourite right now would be to try Saka there. We have been struggling with both creativity and goal threat but this doesn’t surprise me with Willian on the right and that missing extra CM to both create for the front three and add an extra central goal threat.

At some point we may find that we need improvements in that creative and goal scoring department, but our recent struggles have more to do with not utilising the players we already have in the right way.

We have reduced our creativity and goal threat ourselves. This line up feels right to me (in a 4-2-3-1 or 4-2-1-3) which carries goal threat from at least four positions, and creativity, but still with a solid hard-to-break-down look to it: Leno Bellerin, Luiz, Gabriel, Tierney Partey, Ceballos Saka Pepe, Lacazette, Aubamayeng.

I think you could change the Number 9 without too much drama and Saka could also play where Pepe is with someone else in the ACM. If Auba is rested or moved up top then Nelson can drop in to the left side attack (or as a left field suggestion even AMN). Any of Elneny, Xhaka or AMN can partner Partey and it is a question of who partners Gabriel at CB, but Luiz feels the strongest option right now.

GoonerB

Alan Davies is many things: the fall guy for Stephen Fry (and latterly Sandi Toksvig) on the brainy panel show QI; a magician’s assistant who solves murders in Jonathan Creek; presenter of some show about dogs on Channel 5; the tonsorial inspiration for a bevy of mop-topped footballers from David Luiz, to Willian via Matteo Guendouzi; and a reasonably amusing comedian.

He is also a die-hard Arsenal fan and long-time season ticket holder who has done the hard yards over the years watching us lose away in every northern sh*thole town from Oldham to Barnsley.

He’s also quite good at ranting.

His memorable rants include his furious reaction to Aaron Ramsey having his leg snapped by the Shawcross animal, whom he memorably described as “a clumsy idiotic thug,” representing a club (Stoke City) that “are sent out to play like that.” 

Another rant about Liverpool’s refusal to play games on the same date as the Hillsborough tragedy led to him being told he should never go to Scouseland again (so, a clever move on Alan’s part there I think we can all agree – a bit like telling a fat bloke he’s banned from the salad bar).

Well, he’s been at it again following our recent rubbish performance against Aston Villa.

This was a good rant. A very good one. So good that I transcribed it after hearing it on his rather good podcast The Tuesday Club yesterday.

What I liked was that it was not a rant against Mikel Arteta, or about the fact that our team rolled over for Villa like a poncey lapdog that wants its tummy tickled. It wasn’t even a rant about Willian, my own bugbear from the performance.

Alan went deeper than that and identified the root of our current problems. Hearing it made me appreciate better the sheer scale of the challenge that El Patron has taken on here at Arsenal. It’s like he’s bought a house hoping to build a conservatory at the back and put a firepit in the garden, but he’s just discovered that the whole structure is infested with dry rot.

Here’s what Alan had to say:

“Talk me through the Unai Emery period signings (I don’t know who’s responsible, if it’s Mislintat or Raul Sanllehi or Unai Emery). Leaving aside Kieran Tierney, if you look at Sokratis – £18 million, not noticeably an upgrade on Calum Chambers or Rob Holding or Shkodran Mustafi, already at the club: waste of £18 million.

“You look at Jay Leno, £19 million, decent enough ‘keeper but not noticeably an upgrade on Emi Martinez who’s already at the club. 

“Lucas Torreira, £22 million, half decent player but evidently much too small to play in the Premier League, nowhere near the power to survive in there.

“Guendouzi seems to have bags of potential but is obviously raving mad and we knew he’d been raving mad because he’d fallen out with his manager in France and not noticeably better than Ainsley Maitland-Niles or Joe Willock who already we’ve got in the club, or Emile Smith-Rowe in fact, so no point buying him either.

“And Nicholas Pepe: this kid is a bit of a streaky winger, not fully in control of his legs, a little bit Bambi, will he control it or will he not? He doesn’t know, no-one on the team knows. Brilliant at cutting inside and smashing it in a cross-cum-shot fashion out of play. Really, should we not have just kept Walcott? What is the point of spending £72 million?

“Emery wanted Zaha, and for the money we spent on all that load of crap we could have got Zaha and Grealish. Honestly, the recruitment in that two-year period…

“So Arteta is picking over the rubble of the end of Arsene Wenger, where there are players on monumental contracts… then the kind of chaos of who’s in charge in transfer policy and… that chubby bloke from Spain who looks like he’s just put out a fag who’s supposed to have a contact book that’s going to outdo everyone in the transfer market. 

“Then we really bought into a load of flannel about how brilliant we were – do you remember we were told what a genius he is to get Pepe and then pay for him over five years? This is not the first time someone has had to pay in instalments – we still have to pay it! And at the moment he’s worth £22 million not £72 million, if that. 

“All of these transfers, I wish they had never happened I wish they had not allowed him to buy anyone. After that final in Baku I said sell the lot… just put all these kids in and find a left back, which we did in Tierney, and then we had  a half decent team: we had Martinez, Chambers, Holding, Bellerin, Tierney, we had lots of good talent in midfield, people who aren’t getting much of a look in like Rees Nelson, Eddie Nketiah, Joe Willock, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Smith-Rowe, the absolute genius that is Bukayo Saka, the sheer brilliance of Martinelli: I thought this lot could really do something. 

“I mean if we’re really going to be crap and finish 12^th at least let this lot bond – and as it is we went and spent £170 million or some astronomical amount of money on crap.”

Alan and his fellow podcasters went on to agree that there were signs of encouragement with our most recent pieces of transfer business, in that both Gabriel and Partey look like clear upgrades on what we already had.

But going back to the heart of his rant, can anyone really disagree with any of it?

Something very strange went on with transfer policy at Arsenal over a period of several years. The best we can say is that it was incompetence. The worst… well, the laws of libel constrain me from saying what I really think.

So, if our “ups” under Mikel Arteta are accompanied by some very deep “downs” from time to time, let’s cut the man some slack and take into account the context of the sh*t show he inherited.

RockyLives