And some people still don’t think AMN could have been a useful player during the second half of the season.
But not surprising at all given the state of the squad down the stretch. The whole reason we didn’t expect top 4 at the beginning of the season
Do we really want Elneny as 4th choice and not try to develop Lokongo. He had like 2 good games vs soft teams and now extend him A versatile fullback has to be bought or will hijack next season like it has this 1
Nothing we didn’t already know, short a proper CF, need actual CM depth if not upgrades over our starters, another CB (saliba), fullback depth. Didn’t score enough goal this season from CF and Elneny not a multi game option, same goes for Cedric.
You don’t think he could have dealt with Son better than Cedric did? Or played in midfield for Partey the last 15 minutes of the Carabao Cup in January (red card). With a rested Partey maybe we don’t tie Burnley at home the next match. My complaint is about the small squad more than AMN individually, but when the points are this close he could have helped, and didn’t need to leave. If we had better squad players he wouldn’t be missed.
I've listened to both sides of this debate. I am quite alright with him being 4th or 5th choice for a few reasons. The primary reason is, he's a bench piece and he'll sit there and shut the fuck up when he's not in the squad for months on end while still showing up every day. We have wasted much more money on much dumber shit.
europa league was always the minimum goal this year, and glad we reached it spoiler contains some concerns of mine heading into next season, but spoilered since we’re all kinda probably on edge at the moment and i don’t want to be too doomy gloomy Spoiler 3 things that have me worried going into next season: 1) how will we finish next year with additional europa league games? we can barely stay healthy without any continental competitions and we finished 8th in the league the last 2 years while playing in that competition. will we be able to keep up to fight for top 4? 2) worried about player recruitment/retention without champions league. not sure how the dream signings (gnabry/whoever), minus jesus who seems sold on the project…hopefully, feel about europa league when they could be somewhere else playing champions league (hopefully saliba’s cool with it too) 3) city and pool are in their own league, chelsea may be at a bit of a crossroads at the moment admittedly, but man u will spend this summer and now have ten haag, spurs have a couple more years of prime kane, son, and conte plus they’ve recruited well under their new italian sporting director, and newcastle are only going to get better with their new owners. think it’s likely to be more difficult getting top 4 next year (and the coming years) when factoring all that in imo
No he didn’t, but he also didn’t help mark Son and that’s what got Holding in trouble. Maybe that is on the coaches. Calum Chambers might have been useful at the end of the season as well. I will leave Aubameyang out of it.
It was bullshit but he gave up a penalty vs Spurs. Got caught upfield for Newcastle’s 1st and didn’t hold the line for their 2nd. Not to mention all the games he just constantly lobs in helpless crosses. He’s shit well aware we’re not buying 2 fullbacks and he’s a better option than Tavares but we can’t have those 2 as backups for 1 injury prone starter in Tierney and Tomi who missed like 3 months
I love Tierney but think I saw he’s only played ~50% of the possible games. Need serious backup for him. Same goes Partey. I’ve been really happy with the level of player we’ve brought in with no Europe, same seems to go with retention, whatever Edu and Arteta are selling seems to be working. Don’t think finishing 4th a year early does much vs MU and Newcastle spending power, better off continuing with our recruiting policy
I’m alright, happy with Europa. Was pissed on Thursday but that’s more the rivalry than anything else. But whatever, I have been thinking Europa might be a better natural progression for squad building. It may be delusional but I feel like they can build the squad at a more realistic pace this way. Your concerns with Europa and league were same for me with UCL. Europa affords us the ability to trot out legit cup teams in groups, UCL does not. At the end of the day we at least played some attacking progressive football. I also feel like depth is an illusion for us. We don’t even have a proper first team. What Laca and Nketiah provided was just a mirage. Have to figure out the best starters and then depth needs to develop from there. Depth is not some fringe squad player who wants to be Theo.
I follow this line of thinking as well. CL a year early would have placed additional minutes on the legs of players unable to maintain their fitness this season. CL Group stages doesn't allow rotation, the way Europa will.
I got a tough time seeing any silver lining. crucial summer and the quality of the recruitment list just took a big hit.
Oh it sucks but we basically just ran out of players, what can you do but buy more and no CL didn’t stop us from getting Odegaard, Gabriel, White, Ramsdale, Partey, or Tierney. anyone who isn’t coming because of Europa is probably a future wage problem
Definitely a disappointment falling short of CL & finishing behind Spurs again... There was a ton of progress over the course of this season & the team is growing together.
I feel like he’s indirectly talking about some folk when he mentions not following Artetas game plan. But maybe I’m reading too much into it.
more bad contracts off the books, not enough talent brought in to make CL but they've gotten quality when and where they did add. Basically just down to Pepe, and to a lesser extent Xhaka, in terms of guys you say "god I wish we weren't paying that dude," and even those two guys don't bring the baggage that a lot of the chumps we've offloaded over the last two years did I'm still not sold on Arteta as a manager but the squad and the books are a hell of a lot healthier than they were when he took the reins