Mikel Arteta was pleased with the way his players defended after going down to 10 men for the third time in five league games, on a night when Arsenal had to settle for a 1-1 draw with Southampton.
Theo Walcott, on loan from Everton, dinked over Bernd Leno to put the visitors ahead on 18 minutes but the Gunners responded after the break courtesy of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s first goal from open play in the league since the first game of the season.
After the match, the boss spoke to Amazon Prime Video…
On the result…
When you cannot win it, you don’t lose it and playing again with ten men for so long against a really good side, you have to take it. I think we defended with our lives. The boys showed a lot of character to hang in there. In this difficult moment, we have to take the point.
On what he thought when his side went down to 10 men…
I was disappointed with the way we conceded the first goal, it was the first action that they really created. It was a very intense game because we both were really high pressing teams, there were a lot of very little situations in the final third to sustain those attacks. We had some good moments and some good opportunities that we didn’t score. After in the second half, it was about believing that we could do it. We came out really strong, we scored a really good goal but again we went down to 10 men. It’s a mountain to climb again.
On Aubameyang scoring…
Hopefully, that’s going to unlock us because in the last few weeks it’s been a struggle. We created the chances and were not scoring and for the confidence of the team and in this cause, individually, for Auba, it’s really important.
On the discipline problems…
There were many incidents before that where the referee didn’t give any yellow cards for blocking free-kicks and kicking the ball out and we got it. You have to be a little bit stable on that and understand the game and the tension about it, after that we got the decision and we had to fight back.
It just doesn’t seem possible to me that he can turn this around, there are no signs of real improvement.
Well, good thing the Board is taking your instructions.
WHo’s your pick for the next gaffer?
Pochettino would be my first choice but given the fact that he could go to a big club instead of us somebody like Hasenhüttl can be a decent and realistic improvement.
He already has experience in turning around sunken ships, just as he did after losing 0-9 to Leicester
FFS. Not to act like an A-hole here, but what on earth makes you think trophyless Pochettino is a good idea?
And he’s already said he’d rather retire than manage arsenal. And the other dude already has a club.
That result is probably anecdotal, not proof of anything. He’s flavor of the week.
Come on.
Trophies? We are years away from being anywhere near trophies. Poch is a modern manager who laid a great foundation at Tottenham AND showed he could coach young players well. He’s a great stepping stone even if he doesn’t win anything.
Had Tottenham about where we are now when his time ran up. And we’re not years away from being anywhere near trophies – we’re a few months from having won one. And that’s one more than Pochettino won at Tottenham.
So he had his Di Matteo moment. Great for the club. I noticed that the team didn’t go into a death spiral when Poch’s time ran out and after he was removed. How about this novel idea: part ways with coaches when their time runs out?
I guess the FA Cup must have been a mirage!
You really want a manager who has never won a trophy after 12 years and left Spurs in 14th place. I still want to give Arteta more time but certainly we don’t need a serial loser
Lucien Favre is available. He won’t improve our defence but will certainly improve attack.
This is a very talented manager who is going thugh the lowest point of his short career. Lets get behind him please and give him all the support we can. We need stabiliy and if it means going through relegation then Im okay with it. Let him get rid of all these over paid players and replace them with hungry young players. It’s easy to applaud people when they are wining the FA cup against all odds…they dont need our support then. They need it when they r stuggling which is now. Besides, even if this is our worst season,… Read more »
I am genuinely curious as to what makes you think he’d get us out of the championship?
Arteta brought lots of changes to this club in a short period of time. He refused to accept mediocrity and have shaken things up. And he was proud to wear the Arsenal shirt unlike so many players right now. What maks you think someone from outside coming in will suddenly improve everything thats wrong with our club? They would never be able to have the same influence as Arteta in such a short period of time unless they were Klopp or Guardiola. Even Bielsa neded time at Leeds and it’s not like he can guarantee you better result with same… Read more »
😉 Sorry I meant that as a tongue in cheek response. It’s so serious here!!!
I am genuinely curious as to what makes you think he’s a talented manager?
The opinions of a whole lot of people who know a great deal more than you do about football, his current players included. Not being privy to training sessions, it’s the next best thing I have to go on.
Finally some positive comments — thank you guys! Please keep your voices up.
I wish opinions could get results.
I wish some of our so-called Arsenal supporters’ opinions weren’t knee-jerk reactions of a 6 year old toddler, but here we are.
You can change the manager all you want, but you’ll probably get about the same results until they clear out some of these players, especially in CM, where we are missing our marquee signing. Partey could definitely have improved our play.
See what Wenger did to real Arsenal supporters? Not only did he cultivate the loser mentality in the squad and at the executive level, he also drilled small club mentality into your head. Not a single ambitious or even competently run club would tolerate this run of form and apparent lack of ideas.
Wow.
Wenger also gave us the Invincibles. What’s your point? We are all upset at this losing streak just like you. But triggehappy decisions like firing people does not really help. U. Emery came with a big reputation and also a successful record of Europa league. Most people were happy with the appointment. Artea came with no management history. Even more people were happy with the appointmet also. Two contrasting managment and communications styles and background…only common things are the league results and the team. Unless we change the team completely, nothing else will change. P.S. Unai is doing well in… Read more »
I’m curious about your winner mentality. Tell me more about yourself. Also, do you have an online class?
You sound like the type of guy who blames the government when your clothes didn’t dry because it was raining.
GFY
So what’s this obsession with blaming Wenger for everything that has gone wrong with the club? How big was Arsenal when Wenger came in? How did he “cultivate a loser mentality” when he won 3 league titles in 10 years (including one in which he went the whole season unbeaten), won a record 7 FA Cups, went to a UCL final in which we lost narrowly after going down to 10 men, never dropped out of CL for 21 of his 22 years in charge… Tell me the “small club mentality” in all that. I get really pissed off with… Read more »
A fucking men to that…..
Did Wenger make you into a whining scum bag too?
He turned us into a big club, it’s the board and owners that have really let us down. Wenger oozed class and gave us some wonderful football. He should be given far more respect and appreciation from fans that got to watch the best football this club has ever played.
Tool
Totally correct
The problem is that we don’t see much hope of making up that 10 point deficit!
A monhs is a long time in football as they say. We still have 5 and a half months of it. So im still hopefull. There were encouraging signs in the second half until the red card.
You’ve got to be joking. How can our standards have dropped this much.
I agree we should support the manager, and that we can turn it around, however relegation would bring the club to its knees. If there’s one thing the past fews years has shown us, it’s that the club can’t compete without Champions League money, let alone without Premier League money on Championship gate receipts.
You’re ok with relegation….?
Have you ANY idea how damaging to this club that could be…….?
In August, I had numpties on here telling me that Willian was going to lead us to the title – now I’ve got you informing me you’d be indifferent to Arteta relegating the club.
That’s it – I’ve heard it all. 🙄
Today was marginally better, and just. Mainly IMO because Xhaka didn’t start.
I wholly agree about Arteta needing to turn this around. Our form the last 6 games is LDLLLD. There’s 5 points between us and the team tied for 18th, one of the team has 2 games in hand. 5 points is us losing and drawing, while the other teams win both. That’s easily plausible on current form.
We’re 8 points away from a Europa League spot. We’re low, but there is a lot of season left to go. We’ll go up, we just have to be patient as the team plays out of this funk.
That’s a simplistic way to see it. Not only is 8 > 5, but on form, again: LDLLLD. The gap to the Europa league will widen whereas to the relegation places will narrow if the same form continues. That 6 games run were not against world beaters as well, only Sp*rs and arguably Wolves the hard ones out. Let’s take a 10 game run: WLLWLDLLLD. That’s 8 points out of 10 with a -9 GD. In that run, notable teams played are City, United, Spurs, Leicester – which makes up not even half of the games. The 2 wins are… Read more »
100% agree. There’s no point sugarcoating things. We’re not too big to plummet with this type of form.
It’s not like there aren’t several pundits, officials, coaches and rival fans that would love nothing more than to see Arsenal relegated. If the club keeps this up, that will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In the last five seasons, only 2 teams that had 13 points on Match Day 12 were not relegated. Those were Chelsea and Everton.
The common factor between those two teams was a managerial change
I’m merely responding to the 5 points comment aimed at indicating we are so close to the danger zone. I think both numbers are irrelevant at the moment, with 25 games to play.
I’m positive that we won’t be relegated not because we’re Arsenal, but because we’re in an incredible slump that will end and we will be a much better team on the other side of it.
It’s been a shit run, but you have to add Southampton – currently sitting 3rd – to the list of not easy. They’re ahead of wolves, drew against chelsea and wolves and beat Everton along the way, so it’s not a fluke.
So half those matches against more of a challenge, the other half we would reasonably have flat track bullied in past seasons.
We’re *already* 8 points away after 12 games and collected 2 points in our last 6 PL games. It was even a relatively easy list of fixtures as well lately.
How on earth is that possible that suddenly we’ll start winning when we’ve seen absolutely zero evidence of progression?
This season is beyond saving and it’s really hard to accept the unacceptable.
I think there is a lot of football to play in the Premier League with 25 matches yet to contest. I’m going to watch them and hope for the best.
Do we really want to become Watford by changing our manager every 6 months?
Klopp, Guardiola, Wenger, Ferguson – none had built a top side within 12 months.
Emirates is turning into away ground for Arsenal. Arteta needs to arrest the situation before it cut short his tenure in the emirates
We are now dependent on a 19 year old to create for us. While, I’m happy for Saka, its disappointing that our plan is to put dozens of crosses in.
Also, some of the senior players can take leaf out of Saka’s play for the effort and commitment.
He might not be the right manager but no one is going to be for coming months. Lets stick with arteta and support him, this season is gone anyways. We have some really shitty players.
A lot of shitty players.
A shitload of shitty players, playing shitly most of the shitting time.
Shitloads of Shitty McShitface players
i’m not sure how we can describe the level of shittiness in them, but one thing we can all agree on is that they dont give a shit about AFC
The real worry is we weren’t really creating anything consistent, we had a spell at the end of first half, and we can’t press for shit with these players or the way we do it. Another at the start of second half, as soon as we scored we went back to the same old side. Auba body language worries me a little, I know he’s running up and down but for a captain he should be making more effort. Everton will really give us a hint if we are indeed going in the right direction lose that and it’s doom… Read more »
The doom and gloom is up to you. Putting everything on the next game is absurd. Relax. Give the manager the season to sort things out, and find the positives whenever you can.
I agree. Even the next manager would need to know who among the current lot can stand up and be counted.
Was it that much of a worry? Not in this game at least where we looked like we had some semblance of a plan and carved a few decent chances. We could even have nicked it at the end.
Southampton would have gone top with a win. They are a very decent side.
I’m not saying last nights performance is where we want to be, we all want more. But when you’ve been going backwards for so long, every forward (half) step is progress.
The fact that we got 3 unnecessary red cards in such short times tells me he is not managing the problem. The 1st one we can say Pepe was an idiot, 2nd red card and you start to question what message the manager is sending behind closed doors. 3rd red card has to be on Arteta. He has to go, we played really shit even with 11 men. Just not good enough. Let’s stop the bleeding and get a proper manager who the players will have to respect and obey. I never thought someone would make Emery look good. This… Read more »
The players are under pressure. And they don’t think clearly under pressure. Takes a lot of work and a lot of failure to correct that. It’s all about character and mentality. We have recruited very poorly on that front. More interested in step overs and nice smiles.
The club has been poorly run forever . Last 10 years we’ve stopped being a meritocracy. In this league – that’s bad news. Promoting arteta after 9 months and an FA cup sums it up.
As a club – we deserve relegation.
We deserve relegation???
What kind of thing is that to say?
I wonder, will you be there if we’re playing in the championship?
He slowly extracted creativity from the team and I don’t mean about the Ozil situation. His approach is too conservative giving no freedom to players and that’s why we don’t see Arsenal playing football again. If you are conservative you are predictable and then you are an easy target for each team you play, regardless of their position at the table. They know what we will or what we can play and adapt to that. We have no creative players so we mainly go through the wings and basically do nothing, just run and place the ball in the box… Read more »
Our spacing on the pitch is awful. I lost count of how many times we try to build play down the wing where we have 3 players nearly in a vertical line (not a triangle) and all three are within 10 yards of each other. I saw that a good 10 times, and each time we predictably lost possession. It’s absolutely insane to think that this spacing is intentional… but it must be since it is the same game after game. We can moan about the players, but great coaching makes the best of whatever you’ve got. These are all… Read more »
I totally concur, especially down our left side. But on the right hand side Pepe is almost always left alone by himself with no support. I’m not sure what the people downvoting are actually seeing.
Pepe had lots of support from AMN yesterday – I thought they did all right together. Tierney and Saka are powerhouses on the left side — it’s no wonder we go down that wing, especially Auba is at the end of it. It’s predictable, yes, and teams know to overload us over there, but it led to a goal last night. That’s a start, returning to what works best for us. We have no central attacking midfielder in the setup, so we don’t have a player to help link up play that way; last few games, Lacazette has dropped into… Read more »
Our wing play is narrow. I agree with you and will just add this, if our wingers pull the play they dont have other option then to go all the way and place the ball in the box, where we dont have that type of strikers to head it into the net (earlier it was Giroud maybe). The other option is to slow the game and wait for the fullback to support but that is forward or backward pass and it results with nothing. If we have an attacking midfielder they can link up play, thats first, or they can… Read more »
Agreed, but this doesn’t take into the account the opposition or the ball being played — what I mean is, you example of the Saka-Tierney-Auba corner party: often that happens when we’ve launched a long ball to Auba and the other two are following up for support. It looks bad, but isn’t really. The biggest problem is that our forward line has to do everything with a pair of wingbacks as their support — there are no midfielders up there to provide an outlet, as you say. Getting some attacking midfielders playing more centrally, as Willock and ESR do, as… Read more »
I like we tend to like our own boys, but Tierney a “powerhouse”? Sorry I have higher standards. His final ball is rubbish. His pace is good but not great. I know we can’t all be blessed with Andy Robertson and TAA, but my word, that gap from them to Tierney is massive. His defending doesn’t compare to Wan Bissaka. I could go on… he’s a solid player for a mid-table club but not (yet) anything more.
Tierney’s final ball is rubbish? I daresay your dislike for our squad is clouding your judgement. It’s too bad – I love watching Tierney play, and think that he’s an excellent follow up on Monreal. We signed a winner there. You’ll see.
You have to be happy with a point after going down to 10 men again.Will probably get shot down but we are a very average side.Really reminds me of the team when we were last as low as this. The double side of 71 had been broken up and had been replaced by bang awful players like pat howard Terry Mancini Jeff blockley Alex cropley John matthews Brian Hornsby.The decent players we had like Alan ball George Armstrong Jimmy Rimmer and Brian Kidd saved us from disaster.Unfortunately only a handful of our current team are good enough to wear that… Read more »
Do you remember around 2 months ago where we had become solid defensively but weren’t scoring many goals, and now our defence is crumbling and we’re still not scoring many goals
Yeh Villa burst the that bubble and we have never looked back since..
We played another 35 minutes with 10 men today and didn’t concede, and keep the 3rd placed team to 1 goal, which was the result of one bad decision. Not good enough, but hardly crumbling …
If high pressing team means shed loads of sideways and backwards passing then yes, we’re a high pressing team.
(I appreciate there was significantly less back and side passing in this game, but you know…)
Didn’t watch the game but I agree we were shit. In all seriousness why have luiz, mustafi and Cedric whereas you can drop one of them and add ESR or another attacking player just to be available on the bench. Where is the ambition?
Holding and Gabriel have played a lot of minutes recently, and I think Arteta was being cautious in case one of them became hurt and I think he was confident that we might win this one — hence having defenders to throw on when needed. Instead, we got another red card. Not sure ESR would have done much in that situation, and better to play experienced players to see it out. He did give Willock a shot, who I thought did well.
“we both were really high pressing teams”
Is he even watching the same game? Or does he just reach into a hat and pull out some nonsense quote to mouth?
Sure down a man is a challenge, but we were out passed 10:1.. Ten to one! — after Gabriel was sent off. That’s just pathetic, turtle-in-shell panic.
Arteta may survive in this gutless club, but there’s no magical win streak on the way.
It seems Hassenhutl had more nice things to say about our game than our fans do. Imagine that.
Well. I think the way Arteta responds after these defeats is actually inciting a lot more anger throughout the fanbase. Personally i would suggest he admits the team has a really long way to go, and need to improve significantly. Saying stupid shit like we’re a high pressing team just make me (and probably many other fans) feel like he does not know what is happening. I get why he is trying to be optimistic about the situation, but i think it would be far better if he just leveled with the fans and everybody else..
Why deepen the current crisis by admitting the obvious every single game? When a team is in this kind of funk, stringing passes together and not losing is a massive victory. And to be honest, hasn’t Arteta said it enough in the last year, that we are not good enough, that we are miles away from being a top team, that we have a few years of hard work to go, on all levels, before we can truly compete? I seem to remember hearing that a lot from him, which is another reason why he has my trust — he… Read more »
100% with you Futsboller!
First: Its hard to agree on anything if we’re not even reading the same thing. The whole premise for my argument is that he says stuff that simply arent true. Like: we’re a high pressing team and creating a lot of chances. You can disagree all you like, that does not change the words coming out of his mouth. Second: It is well known that people will calm down a lot more often when their feelings are met with validation. In my point of view many coaches -understandably- forget this because they get defensive and try to make an optimistic… Read more »
I just wish I didn’t care but I do 🤷🏻♂️
Arsenal are just a high school football team. On the field, they are lacking in the mid field, their passes are very sloppy, their shots on goal are very weak, they hold on to the ball for too long and prefer to dribble into the 18 yard box to score rather than shoot from outside the box, they prefer to play an out dated style of back passes rather than forward movement, they also lack speed on the ball compared to other teams. They need to be relegated from the premier league, they are a total disgrace!!!
I just really really really want this to work out for Arteta.
Auba scoring again was great. Come on the Arsenal!!!
I can’t go there today…just can’t go there. Think we could’ve won the match if the red card hadn’t happened, but Gabriel has been one of the few bright spots this season. It was a mistake, and some scouting reports on him highlighted that tendency to occasionally over-commit at times when it’s debatable whether or not that’s necessary. His choice to attack Walcott could have gone either way. Theo made a nice turn and that was that. It cost us today, but measured against his previous 11 performances, I’m not going to throw him under the bus. The 22 year… Read more »
Well you know we keep getting players sent off which is just bad luck you cant make a challenge these days.. thats absolutely nothing to do with the manager.. just bad luck and bad decisions due to a had run right now..v hard to win with 10 mean yet we keep nearly doing it tbf! were not going to get relegated.. we’ll come back ! Auba finally broke the draught!let’s keep 11 this time lol and we can beat Everton.. We haven’t even won the league since 04 anyway and even when we kept making top 4 year in year… Read more »
Arteta making excuses for our discipline problems and blaming the refs for it is not a good look. Both Gabriel’s yellows were deserved and so was Ceballos’s. Our players have consistently been undisciplined. That needs to be fixed but blaming the refs won’t help. I sure hope he has a different message behind closed doors.
We’ve had way more red cards than goals for the past 2 months. That’s… not good.
At least we grabbed a point against a club that’s far higher in the table. That could be big in the relegation battle.
I feel these rules have become slightly over dogmatic and gone the other extreme as VAR means Refs are under greater scrutiny. BUT those are the parameters so the players need to work to it. Silly risky move to lay hands on the striker as last man. Clearly as mentioned, Xhaka far from our only liability. Some people prefer to imagine players like Nketiah and AMN in minnows europa league can bring the diff. Actually no. To be fair to AMN he came up with an assist. But neither were terribly anymore convincing first half. Arteta’s main problem now though… Read more »
Has anyone forgotten that Gabriel is only 22 and he has to take so much responsibility in such a difficult moment at the club. The yellow card was unwise but he did show a lot of commitment (at least compare to Eleny going down and missing the ball AND the player).
Disciplinary issues are with the old farts!
Keep Arteta, It was a miracle we won the FA Cup last season..
This squad needs a massive overhaul & until. that happens we will not challenge for top 4.
Arteta will have to start making substitutions where players have a yellow. Particularly defenders. We probably would have won last night with 11 players.
The press was not lively at all. The defence and midfield only half-pressed the opposition. Basically we defend too deep and worry too much about running a high line. Meaning we concede the middle ground
The press was lively at times, dead at other times, and too lively when Gabriel pressed all over Walcott. I don’t know what you mean about “defend too deep”. — both of our pressing actions that lead to the goal and the red card, the two strikes against us, were near the halfway line. The team worked hard, I thought the press worked well at times, but it isn’t something we do for 90 minutes consistently the way a top team does. We’re working on it … and I think Arteta could help matters with more rotation – as he… Read more »
Guardiola struggled at city in his first season.
But then he was able to spend 150m on fullbacks.
Can’t see us buying the requisit quality, particularly when we don’t sell very well.
Well, North London is definitely red…
The only reason we won the FA C up was because of Goalkeeper Martinez. He controlled his area and give the defence that security and assurance. That’s why we were able to hit teams on counter and punished them. I think Arteta’s biggest mistake is selling Martinez. Don’t get me wrong Leno is a very good gollie but he doesn’t give the defence much security and assurance needed. Since Martinez left you can see we could not built nothing from defence to attack. Because of this our strikers are left isolated. Now we had to depend on a 19 year… Read more »