Club legend Liam Brady says that Arsenal were hard done by against Watford on Saturday due to the award of a penalty for a dive, but that the team’s reaction to that setback demonstrated the mental weakness that has been witnessed countless times before.
He also suggests that the top four will be out of reach this season, and that the best chance of getting into the Champions League next season will come via potential success in the Europa League.
Speaking on The Stand podcast with Eamon Dunphy, Brady was asked about the Gunners third away defeat on the road this season, and the award of what was a contentious penalty despite the fact that Richarlison will face no retrospective punishment.
That was crucial, without that they probably would have gone on and won the match,” he said, “but it did show their frailties and how fragile they are as a team.
“I’ve watched Arsenal a lot this season and they were on a good run going up to Watford, but I still wasn’t confident because we were playing teams that we really didn’t have to do much to beat.
“I’ve got major doubts about, every time we come against a team with character and strength, are we up for it. Can Arsenal cope with it?
“And I think it’s going to be a season where we won’t threaten to the top four, and I think it’s going to be a season where getting into the Champions League relies on the Europa League, where we would have a chance of winning it when we get into the latter stages and he [Arsene Wenger] puts his best team out.”
Europa League all the way!
Spot on
We don’t have the bottle to win the Europa league.
When Chippy speaks, I listen!
He curls it in the top corner (see his best ever goal v Tottenham).
Number seven is Liam Brady.
We were 1point and 3 goals away from 4th last season. So what he’s saying is, either we’re regressing? Others are progressing faster? Or both? When you consider how Chelsea responded to no CL football? and how some of our players should be fresher already.. due to not playing in Europe. Then this is the situation we find ourselves in. Nothing to suggest things will get any better either. Watching us play i’d suggest we’re heading for a further dip. I haven’t felt this low about our chances since the mad trolley dash of 2012 and that season Arsene performed… Read more »
While Arsene appears to always pull something out of the bag, I think that era is over. Once upon a time a bad season for him was finishing second, as the only real competition was Manchester United. That moved further back as Chelsea and City joined the fray, then Liverpool got first Suarez and then Klopp, and all the while Tottenham just needed to stop thinking about us for 5 minutes and come into their own. Arsene’s never had to face this volume of competition in England – look at some of the teams he managed top 4 with in… Read more »
Those teams in the cesc years were much better than this team. We had the best striker in the league and cesc was the best midfielder in the league. The wingers weren’t bad either. Nasri, arshavin, Rosicky. The weakest point was our defending. Poor goalkeeping and a bad collective defensive mentality. Which we still have now. To put it into context, those teams could go toe to toe with probably the best barca team in history and just get edged out or robbed out. This team with the Ramsey-Xhaka midfield axis however? With strikers who can’t score to save their… Read more »
With apologies, gooner, I think you’re patching various different incarnations of the team from roughly the same era and imagining them as the same team. We didn’t consistently have van Persie (that’s who you mean by “best striker”, right?) available until Cesc and Nasri were gone and Arshavin had given up. With Nasri in place a lot of our counter-attacking was infuriatingly slow and ponderous. Cesc’s hamstrings became increasingly unreliable about the same time we became ridiculously reliant on Cesc – there was a marked difference in our ability to create anything in attack when he was on the pitch… Read more »
In all fairness in the last 4 seasons he’s won 3x FA cups 3x charity shields, finished second, third, fourth and fifth. It’s hardly disastrous…. particularly in the current competitive environment like you say. The problem IMO is we’ve been treading water for far too long and there’s a stagnation and boredom that’s running through the club. I don’t think Arsene is as bad as some say, but I’ve also been of the opinion for a few years, that if the right person becomes available? Then we should be prepared to do what’s necessary, and quickly. But it doesn’t look… Read more »
True, Rich. Profitable. This is largely down to the TV deal(s) [corollary – presence in the Premier League], so can it be argued that so long as we’re not relegated, Kroenke’s perfectly fine with what’s going on? If that’s the new unspoken minimum requirement, oh dear.
FA cups are great but let’s not pretend they mean as much. Most teams play their youngsters/back up squad until like the semi finals. Wigan have won it and so have Portsmouth in recent times. The only true barometer is the league and we are going backwards. But not only that when we lose to another big club it’s always in an embarrassing fashion.
you meant the league cup, teams tend to take FA cup more seriously.
Just like when we played the league champions in the Cup Final
One of the best discussion threads I’ve read on this site. Thoroughly knowledgeable and enjoyable. Kudos!
Wigan beat Man City to win theirs…
Hello blog, forgive me if am asking for too much. Is it possible to add the comment section in ios arseblog app? Thanks.
Yes please!
Xaka needs a run in the europa league and league cup. Could sead ‘the tank’ kolasinac be our defensive midfielder a la gilberto silva? We really needs strenght in that midfield. He is a tough tackler and is good going forward too. Wat say gooners?
I’ve really thought about this myself. I don’t know how it would work, but I will try and give Kolasinac a run at CDM on the Carabao Cup games and see if it will work. We really need an imposing, tough guy on that center midfield, and he’s as close as we have for one.
I really don’t know if he can, but the Carabao Cup is a good place to find out.
Yes, yes, and at the same time it’ll offer the opportunity to rotate all the other left wing-back options we have to give them the time they deserve.
Not sure – how tall is he?
The middle of our midfield is just not up to the task. I’m not really sure what type of player Xhaka is. He arrived here having picked up loads of bookings in Germany so most though he was a tackling midfielder. The reality is that he is a poor tackler and his lack of mobility means he picks up a lot of bookings. We haven’t found an effective pair in the middle. I think we need to move to back 4 and 3 in the middle of midfield to get a better foothold in games. Possibly bring Le Coq back… Read more »
The defensive midfield position is Arsene’s Kryptonite.
Wing the Europa league is still wishful thinking
I thought our current strategy was to wing the Europa League?
Even if is our current strategy, is still not an easy thing to do, and given our current situation, I have my doubts we can win it, maybe we can sure, but we will need to up our game. Even if is europe second string competition, it does have some solid teams on it, plus the wave of teams that come from CL means we could still face strong competition. So is still better if we don’t take for granted we are favorites to win it
whoosh
I know very well that Arsenal is not in a good place right know and big changes need to happen but i can’t give a s**t about media slamming Arsenal , media is as awful as Kroenke and they can kiss each other’s A**es. We fans will unite and make all the changes happen and once and for all will show that we own the club. We will start this by getting Kroenke out of our club , we shouldn’t go to the home games and if we have to , “Kroenke Out” banners should be all over Emirates stadium.… Read more »
Surely by definition as a nihilist Gooner you shouldn’t care about anything (seeing as everything is ultimately pointless)?
I love paradoxes.
Name’s already taken
Using a word inaccurately isn’t a paradox.
Correcting people is wrong. There’s your paradox
Best chance of Europe is via Groupon at this rate.
I’ve heard that Tui have got some good deals for the end of the month.
Sadly I think the chances of winning the Spursday League are only slightly better than the chances of winning the champions league. Which is halfway between fuck all and zero
A bit too soon still to say that although we are far from convincing.
I wouldn’t say its our best chance but I would rather say we should not be neglecting that chance either and should now take that competition far more seriously.
It may not be a second string event anymore
Completely agree this whole Ozil furor is missing the point. He was hardly the worse player and he created an excellent chance in as much as he missed one in his short moment on the field. That said, he is 29yrs and we should move him on if we can. the question then would be if Wenger will replace Ozil and Alexis with equally technically gifted players. He should plus add one more if we want to regain any form of dominance we once use to have many seasons ago now. I think an easy fix to replace Ozil will… Read more »
What world do you live in?
He has some salient points.
Not sure if PSG will be selling us anyone or if Draxler will want to come to us but we need more skillful players.
We won’t win the Europa League! As soon as we come up against anyone half decent, we will fall apart like the joke club we currently are! Fact!
A joke club who has won 3 FA cups in 4 years and will still be challenging for a top 4 place. Love toxic supporters
If you’re not good enough for fourth, what are you going to do in the Champions League?
You can point to United getting in via the EL, but we’re talking about Arsenal. If we can’t beat Watford this year, how are we going to do against Barca next year?
Counting on a massive improvement over the summer eh?
Chelsea couldn’t beat Palace. Writing them off as well?
Liam is Arsenal thro and thro.
You can see the pain on his face at every pundit appearance on RTE, when the Arsenal slagging starts up.
Im truly sorry for him as I am for all Arsenal fans.
All right ..Les go coyg Wining Europa is a cake walk man…sarc OoOasm There’s no team in the world that doesn’t face difficulties, but the problems that AW has created for Arsenal are unique…the can’t change tactically during matches, they have no voice in the team, they have the likes of Ramseys who sky efforts when players are free and then put their hands up like “wow that’s never happened before”. Osil is not the issue at all; he’s just not going to play any other way, all managers know that, that’s why nobody other than a galactico team would… Read more »
Really? We all have a lot tonnes of respect for Chippy, things like “I think it’s going to be a season where we won’t threaten to the top four” are not only miles off but don’t do the fragile team or fragile fans any good. We finished a point outside the top four last season. Despite our poor start this we’re only a couple points off at the moment and on the same number as Liverpool & Chelsea who are effectively our challengers for those spots with Sp*rs (all three with CL football). Sure, we won’t challenge for the title,… Read more »