Arsenal just broke a non-winning record of over four decades, losing at home to BRIGHTON ALBION. So many factors have led to this shocking run of form, to the extent, there is a genuine fear of relegation if this situation is not salvaged immediately. 

Numerous factors have caused the present situation. Let’s look at some of the issues that contributed to the horrendous form which ARSENAL is presently in. EMERY’s lack of man-management skills, lack of proper defenders with essential defending skills. Squad overhaul, board decisions/its interpretations, ARSENAL FANS and ARSENAL FAN TV influence. 

UNAI EMERY 

ARSENAL decided to go with the model of a head coach and very good head coach that fits the model and they got in EMERY, but the overlooked the man-management side of the job. And this sparked the beginning of a chain of other factors that culminated into what we have presently at ARSENAL. EMRY has had fantastic record working with smaller clubs but has struggled to work with bigger clubs with big profile players. In ARSENAL the way he handled and froze OZIL out of the team and selection of team captain after the departure of KOSCIENY became an issue in the squad. The team spirit suffered a massive crack and it has been obvious in team performances since then.

Secondly, he tinkered so much with tactics and changed team selections consistently which essentially seemed to confuse the players and made it difficult for the players to perform. He emphasized nullification of opponent more than imposing ARSENAL style of game on oppositions. EMERY confidently sanctioned the departure of RAMSEY when it was obvious that the team needed him and he was prepared to stay in the club. He rather brought in DENIS SUAREZ, on loan from BARCELONA and was obviously bad business. ARSENAL has lost RAMSEY’s contribution of goals, runs and doggedness all season.

DEFENSIVE FRAILTIES AND LENO.

ARSENAL lacks proper defenders who actually want to defend. Defenders who understand they are required to put in tackles. Defenders, that won’t back up on an attack from the middle of the pitch to their 18yard box. ARSENAL defenders are more focused on avoiding failed tackles and being dribbled past, so resist putting in a tackle.

BERN LENO appears to prefer to be an outfield player than a goal-keeper. He is very pleased to have the ball on his feet in ARSENAL 6yard box than having it on the other half. He is slow to do away with the ball and continues to make his defenders get into trouble and commit errors. In the second half of the win away to WESTHAM, ARSENAL scored 3 goals in 9 minutes because they simply moved the ball quickly upfield and there was an urgency to get the ball to the front players. 

OVERLY SQUAD OVER-HAUL

Not more than 3 players that started the win at WESTHAM were at the club 3 years. In 3 years there has been a massive exodus of players. Over 6 key players of the club who were starting games in the last season are no longer in the club this season. Some of the players that were key parts of the team last season no longer start games. The team has lost cohesion and chemistry. Players struggle to understand each other. The result is so many misplaced passes in a game. Lack of confidence in each other is very evident in the team displays.

Liverpool was making the same mistake years before KLOPP came to Liverpool. An example of it was the use the proceeds from selling LUIS SUAREZ to bring in about 5 new players, who never performed for the team. And this was happening consistently. Teams that have been successful in the EPL were able to keep a group of players together for at least 2 seasons and adopt a particular system with little or no changes. This cannot be said of ARSENAL in the last 5 seasons. It is almost impossible to have success in EPL without 70% of your team playing together for at least two seasons. EVERTON is suffering the same feat presently.

ARSENAL BOARD

The ARSENAL board has made series of decisions prior and after parting ways with the club’s legendary manager ARSENE WENGER. Some look good, a bunch misunderstood and some failed to yield desired results.

Having seen MANCHESTER UNITED suffer from post-FERGIE, struggles. They went ahead to make some adjustments and set up a structure to eliminate the same situation when ARSENE leaves. One of which is to have a DIRECTOR OF FOOTBALL and go with a head coach model. They also decided to go ahead with their usual youth-friendly platform. UNAI EMERY ticked the boxes notably was ready to work within budget and level of investment the owners were willing to invest. So he was hired to take charge of the team, which in the end proved to be a wrong choice.

In the summer the board had an opportunity to add talent to the squad. And it was obvious the team needed immediate defensive reinforcement, and proper strengthening in the midfield to form a solid platform for the firepower up front to deliver. Rather the decision-makers of ARSENAL invested hugely on front players, fantastic players though ( PEPE and MARTINELLI), but not adding defensive and central midfield reinforcements, is obviously a major reason the team is in its present predicament.

It became evident that ARSENAL needed to part ways with EMERY but delayed making that decision till the situation derailed so badly. Yet, 3 weeks after pulling the plug are yet to name a new coach, showing obvious unpreparedness and the bravery to make big decisions.

ARSENAL FAN TV RANTS 

(ROBBIE THE MASTER INSTIGATOR)

I have watched and followed the ARSENAL FAN TV for about 5 years now. It has become a fantastic revolutionary invention. Some very knowledgeable and most significantly, passionate fans of ARSENAL come on the channel to express their views and emotions on affairs of the club especially after every match. Respect to ROBBIE, DT, TROOPZ, GRAHAM, TURKISH, KELECHI, MO, CLAUDE, TY, etc. The ARSENAL FAN TV channel has introduced several laudable programs; daily transfer update and biased premier league podcast, players rating, the Kevin Campbell show, talk is cheap show, etc. Obviously, fans always talk out of emotions and for the most part express such in an illogical manner.

But ROBBIE the brain behind the channel has now decided to use the travails of the club and passion of the fans to grow his business which has also become a huge contributor to the present predicament. ROBBIE masterfully winds fans up at any opportunity presented by an undesirable occurrence at ARSENAL. ROBBIE consistently struggles with fans who sometimes attempt to analyse events in a logical manner. Notable of such fans are KELECHI, DT and TROOPZ. These are fans of ARSENAL true and true and are very knowledgeable of the game and the club. I watched the DAILY TRANSFER SHOWS in the past 1 year and ROBBIE constantly undermined the selling of the players ARSENAL was trying to offload by his presentation. Constantly highlighting the shortcomings of such players and wondered why any team will want to sign them. I was wondering if he really wants these players to be sold. No team desiring to buy such players will fail to have a rethink if they see those videos and the outcome left the bulk of such players still at ARSENAL.

I watched ROBBIE struggle to conduct an interview with KELECHI recently, after the loss to BRIGHTON, while KELECHI was trying to put the situations in perspective and logical manner. He has had the same kind of situations severally with other contributors like DT, TROOPZ when the responses he was targeting to hear from turn the other way.

 

Some of the waves and traits on the Youtube channel has transmitted badly to an already not up to task emirate faithfuls who have also failed. Many times the atmosphere in the stadium can hardly raise the spirits of the players. Visiting fans come at times and takeover the EMIRATES. While other teams create a supportive and uplifting atmosphere for their teams but make it hostile for visiting teams. Recently, they have even resorted to booing their team. Arsenal fans need to do better to lift their team-up. 

Join me in the next edition and we shall be considering actions that would have produced positive outcomes for ARSENAL.