Unai says goodbye, Mikel says hello

[jonneymendoza]

And Yas said the club isn't poisonous

This whole defence of Arsenal fan's actions, that he was booed for walking slowly off the pitch, is a load of rubbish too. When his number went up there was a clear celebration from a section of Arsenal fans. The same fans that no doubt booed Eboue off all those years ago too. Those fans turned on Xhaka long before he decided to walk off the pitch slowly.

Yup it's out of order to boo your own player. Has your fans ever booed yours?

 

[rebel rebel]

Karius maybe?

 

[Somnambulist]

He's had 49 league games. I think that's enough to get an appropriate perspective on whether the club picked a good replacement for Wenger at the first attempt, and if you look at objective numbers, it's clear Emery is not doing a good job. Laca and Auba aren't going to sign new deals if the club aren't in the CL at the end of the season and the club in general need the revenue... so better to make a change now rather than either leaving it till xmas when there's not enough time to turn things round or waiting until the end of the season. The ingredients of the team are good enough, just need a better chef to get the most out of them.

 

[rebel rebel]

I wasn't happy with the way we blew the champions league spot at the end of last season. But was happy with the way the squad was cleared out and the new faces were brought in. But then how much of that was down to the Manager? Does he have a final say on who they buy or sell, or does he just coach?
Then this season it hasn't been great, and if we lose next weekend, we could be 9 points behind 4th place. That's blatantly not good enough.

 

[omnomnom]

He's had 49 league games. I think that's enough to get an appropriate perspective on whether the club picked a good replacement for Wenger at the first attempt, and if you look at objective numbers, it's clear Emery is not doing a good job. Laca and Auba aren't going to sign new deals if the club aren't in the CL at the end of the season and the club in general need the revenue... so better to make a change now rather than either leaving it till xmas when there's not enough time to turn things round or waiting until the end of the season. The ingredients of the team are good enough, just need a better chef to get the most out of them.

Hmmm not sure about that to be honest. The defence and midfield are poor.

 

[BaZ87]

Karius maybe?

He was never booed, in fact when he made his 1 appearance at Anfield following the CL final (a pre-season game) he received a huge ovation. Heck, even Hodgson, Poulsen and Konchesky were never.

Arsenal have overtaken Everton as the angriest, maddest crowd in the PL.

 

[rebel rebel]

He was never booed, in fact when he made his 1 appearance at Anfield following the CL final (a pre-season game) he received a huge ovation. Heck, even Hodgson, Poulsen and Konchesky were never.

Arsenal have overtaken Everton as the angriest, maddest crowd in the PL.

Ok, I wasn't sure.

Lately Arsenal fans only show passion when they're hating our own players or coach.

 

[Andybtsn]

Ok, I wasn't sure.

Lately Arsenal fans only show passion when they're hating our own players or coach.

It was the same under Wenger.

 

[rebel rebel]

It was the same under Wenger.

Yes that's what I meant. The abuse he suffered was disgusting.

 

[BaZ87]

Ok, I wasn't sure.

Lately Arsenal fans only show passion when they're hating our own players or coach.

It was the same under Wenger.

Arsenal has become the most toxic football club I've ever known, to the point that it's difficult to see a way of things changing. Years of treading water under Wenger, issues around the ownership and board, followed by a gradual decline in the past 4-5 years has sent them over the edge. In the twitter/youtube era, disillusioned supporters are a dangerous thing. I know we all joke about ArsenalFanTV but it's fast become an accurate reflection of Arsenal's fanbase - they're gone mad, constantly fighting and always a draw away from going full on looney toons.

It's a viscious cycle. Arsenal's fans are going to be like this until they have a club, manager & team that they fully trust and are behind. This will only happen through a period of sustained success, which is incredibly difficult to achieve with the current atmosphere and that's ignoring the more tangible reasons such as there being numerous better teams than them and a teams with greater resources now too.

 

[rebel rebel]

We were bought out by a billionaire who refused to spend any money for years. They relied on Wenger's ability to buy cheap and mold players. But the game moved on, and scouting networks got better. So that became more difficult.
The fans anger increased each year..

 

[Yas786]

Interesting sky sports article here outlining Emery and what he is doing at the moment.
The article writer is correct, we haven’t moved forwards under Emery. We seem to be going backwards rather than forward. I mean we aren’t any worse than Utd at the moment in all honesty.
https://www.skysports.com/football/...senal-are-in-decline-with-no-sign-of-progress

 

[HangTime]

And Yas said the club isn't poisonous

This whole defence of Arsenal fan's actions, that he was booed for walking slowly off the pitch, is a load of rubbish too. When his number went up there was a clear celebration from a section of Arsenal fans. The same fans that no doubt booed Eboue off all those years ago too. Those fans turned on Xhaka long before he decided to walk off the pitch slowly.

I was at the match. What happened was there was ironic cheering when his number came up. I wasn't one of them but I had a quiet chuckle to myself. Probably as you say some sections of the crowd were celebrating. Then he was trudging off and it escalated because of that. It's not a load of rubbish, he was getting flak anyway, but it descended because of his actions. I was by that point gesticulating and calling for him to get off - because he was being too slow and walking diagonally to the bench rather than via the most direct route as mandated under the new rules (to be fair, most people do that).

 

[BaZ87]

I was at the match. What happened was there was ironic cheering when his number came up. I wasn't one of them but I had a quiet chuckle to myself. Probably as you say some sections of the crowd were celebrating. Then he was trudging off and it escalated because of that. It's not a load of rubbish, he was getting flak anyway, but it descended because of his actions. I was by that point gesticulating and calling for him to get off - because he was being too slow and walking diagonally to the bench rather than via the most direct route as mandated under the new rules (to be fair, most people do that).

You admit that he was getting flak before he started to walk off slowly so when people say he was only getting abused because he walked off slowly, it's simply not true. Did it get worse after? Yes, just like it will no doubt be even worse now after everything that's gone on but you can't blame him for instigating the situation as has been the case.

 

[Yas786]

He didn’t instigate the situation but he made it worse by his actions with him being subbed.
Is it going to get worse?? Probably if results don’t start going our way soon. People say you can’t blame the players, no you cannot firmly plant the blame on the players itself. Most of it goes to the manager and his formation, set up and tactics.
He gets that wrong and fans then turn on the players and then the manager. Which is what is happening right now imho.
The stats I posted above in the article are quite frankly shocking. And that’s purely on Emery as he is the one who has us playing like a relegation side at the moment.

 

[HangTime]

I maintain my view that the booing only really started or at least became widespread because of him being slow. He has getting jeered, at least from my perspective, not booed. I was largely silent until it became clear he was holding things up.
This may seem like semantics but it's like the difference between when an opposition player gets booked for repeated offences (jeers) or not (boos).

I've already posted in the matchday thread that I could understand his reactions to getting booed in the heat of the moment, if you've got tens of thousands of people having a pop then you might boil over, it's the lack of awareness of the need for urgency that caused the actual booing part of it in the first place. Storming off swearing down the tunnel would have been less annoying to me had he run off the pitch. Trust me, the difference between his number coming up and then 10s later as it became clear he was trudging off was very noticeable, the majority of calls were "come on, get off, hurry up, get on with it" not "i hate you xhaka you are a load of ****"

edit: going a bit OT, to answer the question I don't think we should be changing the manager at the moment. Arsenal are 5th in the league, which is roughly where they should be, doing fine in Europe, and only got knocked out of the league cup on pens away to a team 6pts clear at the top of the table.

 

[explicit4u]

edit: going a bit OT, to answer the question I don't think we should be changing the manager at the moment. Arsenal are 5th in the league, which is roughly where they should be, doing fine in Europe, and only got knocked out of the league cup on pens away to a team 6pts clear at the top of the table.

I want to agree with you, and I was initially willing to give him two seasons to show something, but stats like xG show that we’re fortunate to be where we are. Its last season all over again, we got incredibly lucky and went on an insane run. I remember thrashing Fulham and the away fans singing ‘we’ve got our arsenal back’ and it did honestly feel like that. But the stats showed that we were massively outperforming our expected goals, and if it wasn’t for the likes of Auba bailing us out we’d be in a similar position to United I think. Towards the end of the season we ran out of luck and started to fall behind in the race for top 4.

5th flatters us and come May i doubt we’d be in a similar position unless something changes.Currently it’s just a matter of being less **** than Chelsea, Spurs or United. Leicester look like proper team and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them finish 3rd. Chelsea also seem to have gotten their act together and theyve got Kante to add to an already strong team.

 

[Somnambulist]

Yeah the summer business and communication from the higher-ups led to some optimism, but unfortunately once the season started it's like they've picked up right where they left off at the end of last year, which is a disorganised, turgid mess that can't build on a lead, let alone protect one.

 

[HangTime]

^^That's sorta what I'm driving at though, you've got MC and Liverpool clearly the best two sides, and then you've got Chelsea seemingly reinvigorated with some relative youngsters under Lampard, and Leicester performing well. So considering you've got the likes of Spurs and MU to add in the mix, being 5th is no worse than par for the course IMO. People have this sense of entitlement around top4 but if you have more than 4 clubs all with that same sense of entitlement then clearly the equation doesn't add up. Even if Arsenal finish 6th I don't think that would be the travesty some make out. I'm not saying it applies to people on this forum but a team like Arsenal attracts younger fans in the successful years 15-20 years ago and some of those won't remember us finishing in the bottom half like I do.

 

[jonneymendoza]

^^That's sorta what I'm driving at though, you've got MC and Liverpool clearly the best two sides, and then you've got Chelsea seemingly reinvigorated with some relative youngsters under Lampard, and Leicester performing well. So considering you've got the likes of Spurs and MU to add in the mix, being 5th is no worse than par for the course IMO. People have this sense of entitlement around top4 but if you have more than 4 clubs all with that same sense of entitlement then clearly the equation doesn't add up. Even if Arsenal finish 6th I don't think that would be the travesty some make out. I'm not saying it applies to people on this forum but a team like Arsenal attracts younger fans in the successful years 15-20 years ago and some of those won't remember us finishing in the bottom half like I do.

O I remembered us finishing in the bottom half!