El Reenghole v El Beige Europa Semi 1st Leg Thurs 29th April KO 8 in the ebeneeng

[BobbyPires7]

Emery is a better manager than Arteta ever will be. His problem was the language barrier. If he had continued to sort his English out who know’s where we would have got to.

[Clummo99]

Emery is a better manager than Arteta ever will be. His problem was the language barrier. If he had continued to sort his English out who know’s where we would have got to.

Honestly mate, don't be surprised if Arteta goes on to be a very good manager eventually. The main issue is that he shouldn't be cutting his teeth at one of the top clubs in the country.

[SteveO 35]

OK I had to bite and read it.

Just a few points......

Losing 3-1 at Liverpool who went the whole season unbeaten at home

Conveniently ignoring the totally baffling tactics used in that game.


People now also pointing to the terrible VAR decisions, well i ask them to look at the 2-2 draw with Palace in the 'disasterous' run of games and please tell me any game before or since then when VAR has fucked as over so much.

I haven't seen anyone using the VAR incidents in mitigation for Arteta in any way. They are being discussed as an individual topic and only for the scandalous decisions they are.


I ask what this board expect from a manager that inherited that shite and was given £40m to get their way out of it.

Selective again mate. Who was in the hotseat for the Nicolas Pepe and William Saliba signings? That's £100m there.


I don't think we'll see a top four finish in a long, long time.

As we didn't under Emery despite a piss easy run in.

And we haven't even mentioned the defensive debacle that regularly allowed opponents 20+ attempts on our goal.

This is in no way me defending Arteta. I've said on here many times that I didn't want him the first time around and nothing had changed for the second time.

The simple truth is that neither are of the calibre that we should have as Manager and imo the calibre that we could have. There really aren't that many managers in world football that would turn down The Arsenal.

As I've said before, I'm not going to defend everything Emery did, as we all know he made mistakes. The tactics at Liverpool might have been baffling but virtually everyone got steamrollered up there, and that is a simple fact. Mr "big game" Arteta's efforts up there this season were equally baffling and we barely laid a glove on them, and in the home game its fair to say that we deserved more than a 3-0 thumping (in fact he acknowledged himself they deserved more than three). That Liverpool home game a few weeks back was anything as bad as under Emery or Wenger, as was the 3-0 home defeat to Villa which could also have been a six or more hammering

Rodders hasn't stopped going on about VAR on every single match thread for weeks. I know its frustrating and some pretty borderline decisions but my point is that this is isn't a new thing that's just happened under Arteta and in no way should it deflect any blame from the ridiculous team selections and performances

The Pepe signing goes beyond Emery - he didn't want him, he wanted Zaha. There's something very dodgy about that transfer that will come out one day. In any event that happened in the second summer of Emery - the first transfer window after Wenger left we were scrabbling around signing Guendouzi, Leno, Torreira, Sokratis and Lichsteiner.

The run in was pretty shocking - as I said, I won't defend that. However, a season consists of 38 games and when the points are added up, it doesn't matter if you started well and ended badly, or vice versa - a table doesn't lie and we finished 1 point off the CL places. There was a 22 game unbeaten run in all competitions which started only 3 games into his reign - pretty impressive I'd say.

The reason why Arteta is being given longer is that everyone's expectations have been lowered. People expected Emery to win things and get top 4 from the start - if they didn't, he'd still be manager - where as the FA Cup bonus under Arteta has been allowed to gloss over pathetic league form ever since he got the job. As for baffling selections - this goon has picked the same team consecutively only once in 80 games. He hasn't got a scooby doo who his best defensive partnership is, who his captain should be, who the best midfield pairing is, has ruined Auba and is going to do the same to a whole host of younger players too.

Emery was a decent manager, who did an OK job in difficult circumstances with everyone ready to instantly judge him against Wenger. This goon is a novice, doing a pathetic job in the luckiest circumstances of serving up this shit to an empty stadium. If he's here next season we're in a relegation battle - I have no doubt about that. None of the players are playing for him - its obvious from the attitude on the pitch.

[Clummo99]

Sorry mate but that's all bollox. You're the lone trumpeter playing this tune.

Not so long ago you were adamant Arteta was taking us down this season, now he isn't you've changed it to next season.

Rodders hasn't once said that the VAR incidents are anything other than shocking decisions and a conspiracy against the club. Never has he used them in any kind of reference to Arteta.

Whether we signed Pepe or Zaha isn't the issue. It's the fact that you said Emery had only £40m but we actually committed £100m on two players and we signed others at that time too.

Like so many on here you seem to believe all the crap and guesswork churned out by journalists and take it as the absolute truth.

I'll reiterate that I'm in no way defending Arteta but you seem to be viewing Emery's tenure through rose tinted specs.

[SteveO 35]

There's no rose tinted specs about it - we didn't win a trophy and we didn't qualify for the CL and he made a number of mistakes and went on a bad run of form. I just don't think it was anywhere near as bad as people have made out - it was an improvement on Wenger's last season and better than anything since then. £40m was the net transfer kitty when he first took the job on, and then the Pepe transfer came later. The €72m is a nonsense figure as it was something like €20m up front - which is why we bought him and not Zaha as Palace would never have settled for a deal spread over years

Maybe I was wrong about the relegation thing, but the fact that we're even talking about it (and most people on here were when we were 15th just before Xmas) shows how much we've declined.....in fact it illustrates the gap between the two managers perfectly. One gets slammed for blowing an easy run to finish top four, and the other didn't get us relegated but will still end up leading us to our lowest finish since the mid 90s.

The guy is clueless - utterly clueless. The worst Arsenal manager I've seen in all my years of supporting the club by quite some distance - and that certainly isn't bollocks

[Clummo99]

There's no rose tinted specs about it - we didn't win a trophy and we didn't qualify for the CL and he made a number of mistakes and went on a bad run of form. I just don't think it was anywhere near as bad as people have made out - it was an improvement on Wenger's last season and better than anything since then. £40m was the net transfer kitty when he first took the job on, and then the Pepe transfer came later. The €72m is a nonsense figure as it was something like €20m up front - which is why we bought him and not Zaha as Palace would never have settled for a deal spread over years

Maybe I was wrong about the relegation thing, but the fact that we're even talking about it (and most people on here were when we were 15th just before Xmas) shows how much we've declined.....in fact it illustrates the gap between the two managers perfectly. One gets slammed for blowing an easy run to finish top four, and the other didn't get us relegated but will still end up leading us to our lowest finish since the mid 90s.

The guy is clueless - utterly clueless. The worst Arsenal manager I've seen in all my years of supporting the club by quite some distance - and that certainly isn't bollocks

I'd argue Don Howe was worse mate.

He and Arteta maybe cut from the same cloth? Both good coaches but not good managers?

[SteveO 35]

There's no rose tinted specs about it - we didn't win a trophy and we didn't qualify for the CL and he made a number of mistakes and went on a bad run of form. I just don't think it was anywhere near as bad as people have made out - it was an improvement on Wenger's last season and better than anything since then. £40m was the net transfer kitty when he first took the job on, and then the Pepe transfer came later. The €72m is a nonsense figure as it was something like €20m up front - which is why we bought him and not Zaha as Palace would never have settled for a deal spread over years

Maybe I was wrong about the relegation thing, but the fact that we're even talking about it (and most people on here were when we were 15th just before Xmas) shows how much we've declined.....in fact it illustrates the gap between the two managers perfectly. One gets slammed for blowing an easy run to finish top four, and the other didn't get us relegated but will still end up leading us to our lowest finish since the mid 90s.

The guy is clueless - utterly clueless. The worst Arsenal manager I've seen in all my years of supporting the club by quite some distance - and that certainly isn't bollocks

I'd argue Don Howe was worse mate.

He and Arteta maybe cut from the same cloth? Both good coaches but not good managers?

I think the football under Howe was on par in terms of the quality - I think Chris Whyte as makeshift centre forward was the worst I can remember! Ironically though Howe got booted when he was actually on a decent run and had us in the top four - felt sorry for the guy at the time and think it was widely regarded as being "un-Arsenal like" how he was treated at the end after all those years of service. There's no doubt he struggled with the coach to manager transition though and GG had to get rid of the big time charlie culture that had been allowed to develop. I think a lot of coaches struggle with it - must be hard to be the players 'mate' one day and boss the next

[DB10GOONER]

There's no rose tinted specs about it - we didn't win a trophy and we didn't qualify for the CL and he made a number of mistakes and went on a bad run of form. I just don't think it was anywhere near as bad as people have made out - it was an improvement on Wenger's last season and better than anything since then. £40m was the net transfer kitty when he first took the job on, and then the Pepe transfer came later. The €72m is a nonsense figure as it was something like €20m up front - which is why we bought him and not Zaha as Palace would never have settled for a deal spread over years

Maybe I was wrong about the relegation thing, but the fact that we're even talking about it (and most people on here were when we were 15th just before Xmas) shows how much we've declined.....in fact it illustrates the gap between the two managers perfectly. One gets slammed for blowing an easy run to finish top four, and the other didn't get us relegated but will still end up leading us to our lowest finish since the mid 90s.

The guy is clueless - utterly clueless. The worst Arsenal manager I've seen in all my years of supporting the club by quite some distance - and that certainly isn't bollocks

The bit in red is not true mate. A couple of panic merchants were talking it up. Most people on here said the PL was too shit for us to ever get relegated and that we'd still finish at least top 10 no matter how bad we were, as our form was not the deciding factor, but rather the amount of shit teams that bolster the SlySports myth of the PL was.

Agreed that Martinez-Lite is now our worst manager ever. He is certainly now worse than Emery, but that does not mean we should have retained Emery, it just means we should sack Martinez-Lite.

[Clummo99]

There's no rose tinted specs about it - we didn't win a trophy and we didn't qualify for the CL and he made a number of mistakes and went on a bad run of form. I just don't think it was anywhere near as bad as people have made out - it was an improvement on Wenger's last season and better than anything since then. £40m was the net transfer kitty when he first took the job on, and then the Pepe transfer came later. The €72m is a nonsense figure as it was something like €20m up front - which is why we bought him and not Zaha as Palace would never have settled for a deal spread over years

Maybe I was wrong about the relegation thing, but the fact that we're even talking about it (and most people on here were when we were 15th just before Xmas) shows how much we've declined.....in fact it illustrates the gap between the two managers perfectly. One gets slammed for blowing an easy run to finish top four, and the other didn't get us relegated but will still end up leading us to our lowest finish since the mid 90s.

The guy is clueless - utterly clueless. The worst Arsenal manager I've seen in all my years of supporting the club by quite some distance - and that certainly isn't bollocks

I'd argue Don Howe was worse mate.

He and Arteta maybe cut from the same cloth? Both good coaches but not good managers?

I think the football under Howe was on par in terms of the quality - I think Chris Whyte as makeshift centre forward was the worst I can remember! Ironically though Howe got booted when he was actually on a decent run and had us in the top four - felt sorry for the guy at the time and think it was widely regarded as being "un-Arsenal like" how he was treated at the end after all those years of service. There's no doubt he struggled with the coach to manager transition though and GG had to get rid of the big time charlie culture that had been allowed to develop. I think a lot of coaches struggle with it - must be hard to be the players 'mate' one day and boss the next

Yeah Chris Whyte at centre forward on the back of a good goal at West Ham.

The latter years of Terry Neill were pretty dire too. He signed Ray Hankin FFS!

[SteveO 35]

There's no rose tinted specs about it - we didn't win a trophy and we didn't qualify for the CL and he made a number of mistakes and went on a bad run of form. I just don't think it was anywhere near as bad as people have made out - it was an improvement on Wenger's last season and better than anything since then. £40m was the net transfer kitty when he first took the job on, and then the Pepe transfer came later. The €72m is a nonsense figure as it was something like €20m up front - which is why we bought him and not Zaha as Palace would never have settled for a deal spread over years

Maybe I was wrong about the relegation thing, but the fact that we're even talking about it (and most people on here were when we were 15th just before Xmas) shows how much we've declined.....in fact it illustrates the gap between the two managers perfectly. One gets slammed for blowing an easy run to finish top four, and the other didn't get us relegated but will still end up leading us to our lowest finish since the mid 90s.

The guy is clueless - utterly clueless. The worst Arsenal manager I've seen in all my years of supporting the club by quite some distance - and that certainly isn't bollocks

The bit in red is not true mate. A couple of panic merchants were talking it up. Most people on here said the PL was too shit for us to ever get relegated and that we'd still finish at least top 10 no matter how bad we were, as our form was not the deciding factor, but rather the amount of shit teams that bolster the SlySports myth of the PL was.

Agreed that Martinez-Lite is now our worst manager ever. He is certainly now worse than Emery, but that does not mean we should have retained Emery, it just means we should sack Martinez-Lite.

I think the reason I'm so angry about it, is because I just can't see an end to it mate. Seriously I think he's lucky to have got this far. I don't even think a club like Everton would have put up with this shit - just don't know how bad it has to be before he gets punted. Its what makes me think that even if Villareal do us, he'll still be here because I genuinely don't know what he has to do to get the boot - relegation most likely. If you're capable of breaking all these records about most games without scoring, most defeats at home in a season etc, then I doubt a semi final defeat in the loss making competition is going to make a blind bit of difference. He's got so lucky with the whole no fans in the stadium situation - the latter days of Wenger and Emery saw the fan displeasure become a regular thing, with people streaming out of the ground long before the final whistle and dead rubber league games with vast gaps in the ground. One can only hope that when the fans are back, they show the some passion they did the other night before the game, because I seriously think a combination of this owner and manager could take us down for the first time in our history. A good run when the kids virtually picked themselves due to injuries saved his skin this year. If he hadn't been forced into bringing in ESR I reckon we'd still be down there now, watching Huff and Puff go through the motions every single week

[DB10GOONER]

There's no rose tinted specs about it - we didn't win a trophy and we didn't qualify for the CL and he made a number of mistakes and went on a bad run of form. I just don't think it was anywhere near as bad as people have made out - it was an improvement on Wenger's last season and better than anything since then. £40m was the net transfer kitty when he first took the job on, and then the Pepe transfer came later. The €72m is a nonsense figure as it was something like €20m up front - which is why we bought him and not Zaha as Palace would never have settled for a deal spread over years

Maybe I was wrong about the relegation thing, but the fact that we're even talking about it (and most people on here were when we were 15th just before Xmas) shows how much we've declined.....in fact it illustrates the gap between the two managers perfectly. One gets slammed for blowing an easy run to finish top four, and the other didn't get us relegated but will still end up leading us to our lowest finish since the mid 90s.

The guy is clueless - utterly clueless. The worst Arsenal manager I've seen in all my years of supporting the club by quite some distance - and that certainly isn't bollocks

The bit in red is not true mate. A couple of panic merchants were talking it up. Most people on here said the PL was too shit for us to ever get relegated and that we'd still finish at least top 10 no matter how bad we were, as our form was not the deciding factor, but rather the amount of shit teams that bolster the SlySports myth of the PL was.

Agreed that Martinez-Lite is now our worst manager ever. He is certainly now worse than Emery, but that does not mean we should have retained Emery, it just means we should sack Martinez-Lite.

I think the reason I'm so angry about it, is because I just can't see an end to it mate. Seriously I think he's lucky to have got this far. I don't even think a club like Everton would have put up with this shit - just don't know how bad it has to be before he gets punted. Its what makes me think that even if Villareal do us, he'll still be here because I genuinely don't know what he has to do to get the boot - relegation most likely. If you're capable of breaking all these records about most games without scoring, most defeats at home in a season etc, then I doubt a semi final defeat in the loss making competition is going to make a blind bit of difference. He's got so lucky with the whole no fans in the stadium situation - the latter days of Wenger and Emery saw the fan displeasure become a regular thing, with people streaming out of the ground long before the final whistle and dead rubber league games with vast gaps in the ground. One can only hope that when the fans are back, they show the some passion they did the other night before the game, because I seriously think a combination of this owner and manager could take us down for the first time in our history. A good run when the kids virtually picked themselves due to injuries saved his skin this year. If he hadn't been forced into bringing in ESR I reckon we'd still be down there now, watching Huff and Puff go through the motions every single week

I put you about 100% on the money there mate. He's been lucky beyond belief and beyond what one could reasonably expect from luck alone. There is also shocking mismanagement by the board and the owners because he should have been sacked by now.

For every fan that says "but he brought Smith-Rowe into the team" I agree with you that he was forced to do it and even now he often plays the kid out of position. And then I'd point at Martinelli - as you and augie often have tbf. We look twice as dangerous and pacey when he plays and the buffoon manager benches him almost every game.

It's obvious he has not got the experience or the knowledge to take this club forward. I'd love if he did, purely because it would mean we were going in the right direction, but I can't see him doing it, not until he has at least 5 or more years experience, and even then he might turn out to be no better than Pubis or Fat Sam AllDaPies....

I don't think we'll ever even flirt with relegation, not because we are too good, but more because there are so many far worse teams in the PL. I think what Martinez-Lite will bring is PL mid-table mediocrity on a scale not seen since the scum's PL tenure.

[the playing mantis]

I liked Emery from day one and were glad we appointed him, the thought of Arteta filled me with bile.

It had no basis in any logic other than being one of peps many assistants. He wasn't even a club legend ffs (not that I'd want an unproven one, but you could maybe understand why a club legend gets appointed)...a good solid midfielder in our years of rapid decline, so not exactly difficult to stand out, who carried on 2 seasons too long when his legs had gone and became a liability. He should have no credit on the bank from anyone.

However Emery was the wrong man at wrong time in hindsight. I was at the game Laca equalized in the last minute i thonk, and no one knew what to do, celebrate or not as it was in a run of utter dross performances on the pitch with us seemingly having no tactics, no plan and no idea and it was clear Dick had lost it, be it the players or simply not being up to it, but he has to go.

This however doesn't in anyway mean he wasn't better than the flange in charge now. He has even less idea on tactics, plan, system, progress than Dick and is a absolute disaster, but that doesn't make Dick any better come the end of his tenure.

Both were/are not the right men at the times appointed for the club. I thought Dick might have been but ultimately not, his fault or not.

I see plenty on here (all bar Rob and Thynker) wanting Arteta gone, but o need to rewrite history and pretend dick was the man. Give me a choice of both and i'd have kept Dick no question, but it was a choice akin to being shat on or puked on.

I understand Stevos anger, about Arteta breaking all these bad records with impunity, but what does he expect with this board (all the shit they let wenger get away with and drag us down) and our retarded fan base.

The same fans who think Arteta has a system, and we are making progress are the very same as those who excused Wenger and wanted him to remain. We have to accept our Fan base on the whole is a load of wankers.

[Clummo99]

a choice akin to being shat on or puked on

What a superb analogy!

[DB10GOONER]

a choice akin to being shat on or puked on

What a superb analogy!

Hmmm.... suspiciously similar to my analogy of a choice between drinking piss or eating shit....

[Clummo99]

a choice akin to being shat on or puked on

What a superb analogy!

Hmmm.... suspiciously similar to my analogy of a choice between drinking piss or eating shit....

Never seen you use that tbh so I really can't comment.