Ahead of Arsenal’s match with Everton, supporters are expected to gather in large numbers outside Emirates Stadium to protest against the club’s owners.
The gathering comes at the end of a week when fans across the continent have voiced their collective anger at plans for a European Super League that was announced on Sunday and left in smithereens by Wednesday.
The Arsenal hierarchy apologised for their involvement on Tuesday evening via a statement on the club website and Josh Kroenke and CEO Vinai Venkatesham attended an online meeting of supporters groups yesterday where the grovelling continued.
Against the backdrop of all that, Mikel Arteta has been trying to prepare his players for a match that his side needs to win if they are to have any chance of qualifying for Europa via the league.
Facing the press on Thursday morning, he said he’s done his best to keep the first team focused on the challenge ahead.
“I am getting used to it, since I joined it has been a rollercoaster and more things have happened in those 18 months than probably in the last 20 years,” he said.
“Dealing with it, trying to maintain the unity and commitment of everybody, trying to be clear and transparent with the news that we have, and trying to move on.
“It’s been a really challenging week for everybody in world football but we have to move forward. There are a lot of lessons we can take from it and we have to learn and probably reflect and put football in a better position.”
Having been trailing Everton in the table for much of the season, a win tonight could see us climb above the Toffees into eighth place, albeit having played one game more. We’ll need to finish at least a place higher than that to secure a place in the Europa Conference League, which means also hunting down one of Liverpool and Spurs.
On tonight’s opponents, Arteta said: “They are having a really good season, we are not getting the results that we want against Fulham where the result was disappointing apart from the performance, which in my opinion we totally deserved to win the game.
But we need to win every game now in the Premier League to give us the best possible chance to be in Europe next season through that competition.”
He added: “Yes, I think we do [have momentum], and the way we are playing as well. But the Fulham game, not winning that one was a real shame for us because that would have put us in a much better position. But we have to move on, we still have a lot to play for in the league and playing the semi-final of the Europa League so we are all excited about the way we can finish this season.”
Arsenal will be without a number of key players this evening. Strikers Alex Lacazette (hamstring), Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (malaria), Kieran Tierney (knee) and David Luiz (knee) are sidelined and Martin Odegaard (ankle) is a big doubt.
Are we all excited Mikel? I’ll tell you what, we will be when we see the back of Kroenke and everyone propping up his ownership.
Day dream. Arsenal fans, fans who owned the club for generations sold it willingly even to the “kind of people they didn’t want to deal with” The days of “fans who care and know the values” being majority shareholders are long gone. So say the Kroenkes sold will you be happy with Kashogi’s blood on our badge and boardroom or are you thinking David Dein, Lady Nina and Lord Harris are coming back to save the day? And those thinking FSG are a lesser evil at liverpool? well maybe or maybe they just struck gold. If we had landed Klopp… Read more »
‘We have to move forward’ sounds like a circa 2014 Per Mertesacker post-match quote after a 2-1 loss to Swansea
‘We need to learn from our mistakes’.
That old favourite. 🤣
Maybe he should focus on telling Elneny that rather than the fans
Zzzzziiiiinnnng!!! It’s nice to laugh again.
Just make sure now that no matter how shit Elneny plays we are all to support him. This is what Mr Elneny wants, in addition to his large salary and bonuses. He told the Sky Sports dude in no uncertain terms. Undiluted, unconditional support, especially when he plays badly.
🙄
Wife – “Did you just try and sell me on the internet?”
Husband – “Come on love, it’s been three days since I took that post down. Don’t you think it’s time to move forward?”
Husband – “I had to, James next door was selling his wife to buy a new a car and I didn’t want to be left behind”.
To be fair this is the chef being asked what the hell was going on inside the said husband’s head at the time.
Let him move on and prepare that local top 7 dish and the continental one midweek.
Tierney and Luiz is a strike partnership I’d enjoy seeing
So would the opposition, I suspect.
“More things have happened in the last 18 months than in the last 20 years.” 20 years – Invincibles Premier League. Multiple FA cups. Consecutive Champions League qualification for over a decade on a shoestring budget. Moved Stadium. Signed Sanchez. Signed Rob Holding. Past 18 months: Crap football. Worst league season ever. Hired a novice. Novice got sick. The “process” arrived and is failing. Pepe. Willian. Gave Rob Holding a new contract. Below West Ham in the league. Least goals scored ever. Worst home record ever. Yeah, while the Kroenke’s may be useless, this is all on you Arteta. Own… Read more »
Who is this again?
I’m baffled by the turn down, arteta is surely responsible for the position of the team in the league and for their below average performance..his decision making is flawed, his game management is zero, even unai wasn’t this terrible, at least we were fighting for UCL spot. This guy is a novice
I agree Arteta is a novice with questionable decision making and player management. As far as Emery goes, yes we finished higher but I honestly don’t know how. We were often conceding 20 shots on goal at home to shit teams but somehow scraping wins. I guess eventually his luck ran out.
If you look at our losses, most of them are by 1 goal which isn’t huge and are down to individual mistakes (Villa, Wolves, Burnely etc). I admit things could have been better but we also should acknowledge that things have evolved in last 12 months of pandemic a lot and our decision making as a club prior to that was absolute shambles. So, putting everything on the manager because he is incharge right now is unfair. Look at bigger picture and then you will understand KSE failed in tracking Raul’s corruption and dealing with player agents. If we have… Read more »
Yes, he is a novice – the Arsenal job was his first as a manager – but everyone knew that when he was appointed. It’s not a great revelation. After all, he is now a novice with only 18 months experience. I’m certainly not an Arteta apologist, but we have to recognise the facts. Managers learn on the job and the greater their experience, the more likely it is that they will have come across problems previously and have an idea how to solve them next time. Arteta hasn’t got that experience in depth. The biggest problem at his time… Read more »
Oh, there it is again, that lovely word ‘Novice.’
Not on a novice’s salary though, is he….?
The manager of Arsenal Football Club is a big job. One that Arteta is struggling with.
Unai was terrible. Players can’t understand his instructions. Mediocre teams have 20 shots against us every game. We go all the way to a final only to get an embarassment. There is no clear plan on how to perform better with Unai. At least Arteta gave our side balls to win against big clubs and grab the FA Cup trophy. This year we’ve been bad, but still in the EL semis. I prefer this still to Unai.
Stan kroanke shud pls hand over ownership of club to a better investors l like Dangote who as a fan will do a lot better
I’m sure he would sell if anyone matched the price he would want – which is likely to be a big premium over what he paid. The problem is that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon as football clubs aren’t top of many billionaire’s wish lists currently.
As an industry amidst pandemic not a very lucrative one and I would admit, it feels like sinking in near future because of its unaffordability and shorter attention time span among young ones. To an extent I do get the logic of evolving the football so that it remains attractive as a product (competition is increasing immensely) but ESL was just not the answer.
We can all find fault with particular comments by Arteta but the main message is, I think, valid. Although I’m not a great fan of the manager he is in a difficult position and has to try and get the focus back on playing football here and now. Although the chances of any move up the PL are looking remote, the opportunity for a trophy presented by the EL is unchanged by the events of the last week. The ESL has left a sour taste for many but the team is still the team and we can support them without… Read more »
We must move forward, not backward. Upward, not forward. And always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!
But always making sure that we don’t get giddy and fall over.
COYG! Really want us to celebrate St Totteringham’s day this year. Yeah I know it’s depressing that’s all we have left to play for in PL, but I don’t think I could take a 5th year of that lot finishing above is FFS!
Words words words words words.
Now take a look at the League table.
Hopefully nobody turns up to that protest at the stadium today. The last thing the players need is a distraction like that 6 days before a European semi-final. Plus there’s a pandemic going on.
I hope the players get reminded what the Club means to its supporters. How the supporters don’t stop caring even in the midst of a pandemic. Hopefully the players in turn don’t stop caring too and take courage from how fans responded to the ESL debacle.
Let’s not rock the rocking boat – get real. Full-on and sustained protests are needed. A reminder. The protests are not against the players but the owners. So for me the protests are an act of solidarity WITH the players and should encourage them.
My sense is that Arteta has lost confidence in the owners – and “the project’ and is hugely deflated by Arsenal joining the ESL and how the owners treated him and the team. When he talks of “the team, unity, commitment, challenges, moving forward,” he basically giving a peptalk to himself. Tonight’s performance might give us a clue
Forever moving forward. Except Elneny.