Will Arsenal Get Relegated This Season?

[Stan]

 

Worst start to a PL season ever. 

First time in few decades they've lost 4 on the trot at home in the league. 

 

Will they drop? 

[Dave]

If they do I hope we go in for Maitland-Niles. Not sure the rest are worth the wages.

[Devil-Dick Willie]

Lol no, they're 5 pts clear with some utter dire shite bellow them. They're more likely to finish top 7 than bottom 3

[Stan]

3 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

Lol no, they're 5 pts clear with some utter dire shite bellow them. They're more likely to finish top 7 than bottom 3

Not if they can't beat the teams around them

[Bluewolf]

What Women think depression is.... 

What men think depression is.... 

What Real depression is.... 

[Stan]

And what happens when you watch Arsenal in the process of giving you depression

[Smiley Culture]

Arteta is gone now, you’d think. 

[Pyfish+]

10 minutes ago, Smiley Culture said:

Arteta is gone now, you’d think. 

You'd think so. He's on borrowed time. If he doesn't improve things, and quickly, he's gone.

[Cicero]

For who though? Last season, appointing an interim was just as shambolic. 

[Danny]

They were good pre-red card

[Dave]

8 minutes ago, Cicero said:

For who though? Last season, appointing an interim was just as shambolic. 

[Stan]

10 minutes ago, Cicero said:

For who though? Last season, appointing an interim was just as shambolic. 

[Dan+]

If they were in any serious danger late on then corruption would keep them up, there's no way the Premier League let Arsenal go down.

I think sadly they'll just finish in midtable. This is the most spectacular meltdown in some time though.

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 hour ago, Cicero said:

For who though? Last season, appointing an interim was just as shambolic. 

Someone with experience that wants money?

Going with Arteta was always a huge risk. I think early days looked alright under Arteta. But right now Arsenal offer absolutely nothing going forward and are as shit defensively as they’ve been for a while now... if not worse.

Arteta’s out of his depth, imo. He might be a good assistant, certainly seems like City miss him tbh... but as an Arsenal manager I think he’s been found out massively. Burnley tactics and Aubamayang wanting a lot of money only get you so far when you get exposed for being weak as fuck at the back and Aubamayang getting paid and no longer giving a shit.

If Arsenal want a pragmatic manager they should get Rafa in and give him money to spend... they should have done that to Ancelotti, though.

But to answer the topic question, yeah... they could. I doubt it, but it also never thought Leeds would go down. I also remember being very young and not knowing much about football other than Robbie Fowler was god and shitloads of people were stunned Forest got relegated. I remember thinking Hodgson was going to take us down. Nobody is too big to fall.

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 hour ago, Stan said:

It’ll never happen... but I’d love it if he came back and turned Arsenal around 

[Panna King]

Once Arteta leaves, Arsenal will start scoring and playing well again, its clearly a coach/player situation due to dealings in the summer.  Guendouzi, Saliba and Ozil have all fallen out with the coach big time plus 2 of them are very popular in the dressing room.

[Dr. Gonzo]

27 minutes ago, SirBalon 69 said:

Once Emery leaves, Arsenal will start scoring and playing well again, its clearly a coach/player situation due to dealings in the summer.  Guendouzi, Saliba and Ozil have all fallen out with the coach big time plus 2 of them are very popular in the dressing room.

Lol see what I did there?

[Stan]

7 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

It’ll never happen... but I’d love it if he came back and turned Arsenal around 

Course it'll never happen. 

But I wouldn't love it at all. Happy for them to stay where they are. Makes a mockery of Sky/BT peddling on about the big six when one of them languishes near to relegation than the European spots, amongst other reasons. 

[Lucas]

I honestly feel bad for Arteta. They have been poison for a long, long time.

Really inherited a dogshit squad there and he's had one transfer window to try and amend it. It's not like he's ignored using youth either, he's been trying to do the right things.

I don't know what power the players have there but Arsenal have never been a 'roll your sleeves up and graft' kinda team.

I think the captain of your club often depicts what your club is about. Henderson at Liverpool is a prime example. Aubameyang or Xhaka, whoever has it, would never in a million years inspire me. Hardly a Tony Adams between them. 

Perhaps Arteta has rocked the boat a bit and told a few home truths but I do like that about him. I think he's gone in with a bit of a 'No nonsense' attitude, a hard disciplinarian that won't take no shit and put a few noses out of joint as a result.

Unfortunately, it's having the opposite effect. Not fair really because bar maybe a couple, you wouldn't want any of those players by choice but you know it'll end with Arteta being sacked most likely.

[Chaaay AFC]

Can't stand most of this team but they're still one of the top 8 teams. No way would the club let Arteta continue if the threat was there. I imagine he'll get sacked at some point and we have the new manager bounce, then probably end up in the top half. 

[Michael]

Just because they have had a bad start to the season, doesn't mean we should start suggesting that they will get relegated. Arsenal have too much quality to get relegated. Even this current team is probably among the top 7 or 8 Premier League teams in terms of strength. The team hasn't become shite overnight, Arteta just needs to get his tactics and player selections right. Their loss at home to Burnley was embarrassing.

[RandoEFC+]

10 hours ago, SirBalon 69 said:

Once Arteta leaves, Arsenal will start scoring and playing well again, its clearly a coach/player situation due to dealings in the summer.  Guendouzi, Saliba and Ozil have all fallen out with the coach big time plus 2 of them are very popular in the dressing room.

If losing Ozil, Saliba (who?) and Guendouzi from the first team fold is actually having an impact on you then 14th is probably about where you should be in the league.

Honestly. Is this a serious criticism of Arteta? Ozil has been shite and a massive problem for Arsenal for years. Huge talent but has been a liability for a long time. Arteta is right to freeze him out. Guendouzi is bang average and would be a bench warmer at West Ham or Brighton. Like I said, I don't even know who Saliba is.

Arsenal's problem is that they have a lot of woeful dead wood in their squad and a collectively shit mentality. If players like the ones you've mentioned are popular in the dressing room and the squad allow them to influence how they respond to the manager, then they should all hang their heads in shame, not the manager. Do they want Arsenal to get better? Because if any of them do, then by all means still be mates with Ozil and Guendouzi in your own time, but professionally, you can't let them hold the club back. This Arsenal squad need to give their heads a proper fucking rattle, because they turned shite under Wenger, then they were shite under Emery, and now they're shite under Arteta. They are the common denominator, they are the ones who have been shite and failed to improve when given a fresh start under a new manager, some of them more than once.

Arteta has tried to take a harder line with them, and a hard line with Ozil. He must have been tempted to try him out again with the talent he has, but he hasn't because he knows he will eventually let the club down again and he'll be back to square one. Arteta's problem is that he's a junior manager and a former teammate to some of his players. He doesn't have the aura of a Mourinho or a Guardiola that can come into a club, alienate one of the highest paid and most influential players there, and get away with it. In that sense, I feel sorry for him because I do think he's tried to do the right thing from a man management point of view. He's called out Xhaka this weekend and whoever else it was who got sent off or fucked something up a week or two back. Again, this can be the right thing to do when someone lets the team down and needs to do better. It would work for Mourinho or Ferguson but it won't work for Arteta because of his lack of a managerial CV.

Then you have to look at the ability in Arsenal's squad. Who would the other 'top 6' sides take from Arsenal apart from Aubameyang? Arsenal fans probably think they'd want Tierney or Saka. Well they wouldn't. Arsenal dig through Chelsea's bins these days and pick up their discarded shite. Nobody is envious of Arsenal's players anymore, and when they are they just wait to pick them up on a free transfer because of their shambolic handling of contracts. Their squad is no better than Wolves, Everton, Leicester on paper, and they're even worse on a football pitch. Aubameyang is the only player they have of real top six quality. I'd hear you out if you wanted to put Leno forward as well but that's pretty much it. When Aubameyang is unavailable or out of form, you see Arsenal for what they currently are, a mid-table side. If you took Aubameyang out of the side, and sent them out onto the pitch in West Ham shirts, nobody would tell the difference. That's genuinely the quality of player that club is full of these days.

There's a few things I've mentioned there that give Arteta a few excuses. That said, I've been disappointed with him overall. He's done no better really than anyone else would with a new manager bounce. Winning the FA Cup was obviously a major achievement, along with beating Man City on the way there and Liverpool in the league. He was praised by many, myself included, for what appeared to be a pragmatic approach in those games and a willingness to adapt to his opposition. Well now he seems to set up like that every time, and he wasn't actually adapting, he was just using his normal tactics. It's now starting to look like he's a bit of a one trick pony who has already been sussed out. You could argue that he'll be more expansive when Arsenal have less limited players, but West Ham and Newcastle have limited players too, and they're managed by David Moyes and Steve Bruce, and they're a better watch than Arsenal at the moment. It's a shame because he should make a good manager, but taking over Arsenal is a huge job and one that he's really struggling with, and taking over Arsenal right now when they're pretty much an entire new squad away from competing where they should be in the league, is an even tougher ask. I think sacking him this early would be pretty harsh but it's already looking inevitable that it'll happen soon enough.

[6666]

The squad is definitely better than this. I'm not having this idea that Arteta is doing the best with what he has. Nowhere close.

[The Artful Dodger]

The victory over Liverpool last season was one of the flukiest I've seen, we wouldn't be calling Dyche some sort of mastermind for doing that so let's not go overboard about Arteta. The way they beat Manchester City was impressive but he's really shown little else.

[Stan]

2 minutes ago, Michael said:

Just because they have had a bad start to the season, doesn't mean we should start suggesting that they will get relegated. Arsenal have too much quality to get relegated. Even this current team is probably among the top 7 or 8 Premier League teams in terms of strength. The team hasn't become shite overnight, Arteta just needs to get his tactics and player selections right. Their loss at home to Burnley was embarrassing.

It's more than just a bad start to the season. It's terrible by their standards.

Nearly a third of the way through and they've not kicked on, or gone on any kind of winning run, no momentum and they seem to be in a constant state of disarray on or off the pitch. Think it's fair to say their manager is perhaps out of his depth?

Seen it said a couple of times that the current team is probably among 7/8 PL teams but what does this actually mean if they're not showing it on the pitch? They've been surpassed in terms of stability and effectiveness on the pitch. The squad is stale and you could argue there's 2 or 3 players that could arguably 'walk' in to other sides but not the top sides.

You're right - team hasn't become shite overnight and I've not seen anyone suggest it. Hence this kind of topic. It's been 12 games and they're lying in 15th. That really isn't a false position. Last league win was on 1st November. For a club of Arsenal's supposed standards, not to win in over a month is pretty much unheard of.

And what could be more worrying for them, is that where are their next points coming from? Next games are Southampton (H), Everton (A), Chelsea (H). Three very tough games against sides that are considerably better than they this season.