Arsenal v Man Utd has prompted large amounts of glee from all quarters; things are about to get ugly for Mikel Arteta.
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Balls again?
I am assuming from the quality of the passing in the match at The Emirates that the FA Cup ball is very different to the Premier League one…?
Tyson Anderson
Oh Mikel…
It’s about to get ugly for Arteta. Very very ugly…
Rob A (what has he done to our attack?) AFC
…Even Homer Simpson accepted that his dirty, slimy and ultimately airborne pig was beyond saving. Arteta must accept the requirement to add a proper goalscorer to this team after that performance.
Eoin (Man Utd have themselves a keeper) Ireland
Bring it on, Stewie…
Kai Havertz misses a bunch of chances AND the decisive penalty? Stewie’s mail is going to be delicious isn’t it?
Luke, THFC, London (Tamworth are better than Liverpool, that’s the conclusion we have to draw isn’t it? Isn’t it…?!)
…Sincerely, I am so excited to read Stewie’s next mail.
Bodych (is Vinnie P, Diet Stewie?)
…I imagine that Havertz disasterclass was his Christmas. Happy Christmas Stewie.
David, Ireland
And here’s Stewie…
Any idea what the latest set of excuses are?
I was thinking perhaps the wildfires in LA really affected Arsenal’s delicate petals? Actually Amorim’s surname starts with the first letter of the alphabet, meaning poor Mikel cannot possibly be expected to compete with that? Oh and like Slot, he’s never managed in a top 5 league, and he’s inherited a world class squad of Galacticos. Just ask Bournemouth, Forest, Wolves or Spurs about that!
Or perhaps DEEP STATE PGMOL yet again, ruining an Arsenal fixture with a needless red? How on earth is any team supposed to compete when they’re down to 10? Don’t you realise going down to 10 men means you have to lose!
It was clear to Stevie Wonder this result was in the offing, hence why I wrote in and said Amorim has the chance to pull off the funniest thing ever. Obvious from the ManYoo performance at Anfield that the same tactics would clearly work against an expensively-assembled team of wastrels.
No point dissecting what is ultimately the same old shit. Arteta has to his credit, done a superb job replicating Wenger post-2005! We have an action replay of the same old bollocks:
* A manager clearly out of his depth, making endless excuses about “lack of funds” to sign top attackers, even as his £120m “strike force” that trousers a collective £550k a week in wages, continues to regale the world with various comedy combinations of ineptitude, incompetence, injury and plain haplessness. The Tamworth number 9 can honestly not have done any worse. Please continue to remind yourself that with over £700m spent, Arsenal fans are jealous of the strikers at Leicester and Wolves. Another match where a defender is required to break the lock because, of course lol 🙄
* The same old bottling, going out of every competition in the space of days, leaving the season completely dead in early January! A reminder that this Manager has spent over £700m.
* Boring, soporific, sideways nonsense that’s ineffective
* A deluded fanbase who continue to double down and adjust their ludicrous excuses.
Who remembers the days when Arsenal fans used to diss Mourinho Chelsea cos Arsenal “played the right way”? Apart from the fact Jose WON trophies, he had this guy in attack called Didier Drogba. And another bloke called Arjen Robben, and a Lampard guy who would chip in regularly with goals from midfield. Beats watching the rancid unicorn turd, a £65m ashtray (that Chelsea quickly disposed of, for a profit!) and a crocked beach bum better off twerking at the Curitiba Carnival.
The world can see Arteta is an overpaid jester. The fact this man is paid £15m a year, as some Arsenal fans replicate the “end of Wenger” days by actually, seriously attempting to deflect blame onto the Arsenal board, is brilliant! If I’m Stan Kroenke, Mikel Arteta – seeing the shocking state of that Arsenal attack and midfield – is not getting a single penny more to spend. On anything outside of what he knows aka Defenders and cloggers. He’s clueless about the attacking side of the game as I’ve said countless times!
If Kroenke gives Arteta one penny more to spend on attackers, it’ll be no better than Brexit Buffoon Ratcliffe giving ETH all that cash to saddle ManYoo with overpaid sewage it will take years to undo.
Havertz and Jesus should be the end of Arteta’s terroristic reign of attacking nonsense. One final thing, that someone else pointed out but was highly interesting: Arteta spent years working under Pep at Citeh. He knew all the staff, the squad and was close with first team and reserve team players. Arteta leveraged his relationships at Citeh to sign….Zinchenko, the clown that time forgot. And Jesus, we’ve been there. Both for huge fees.
What’s hilarious is that three other players were right there under Arteta’s nose, and not once did he even use his contacts to pursue a deal: Morgan Rogers went to Villa for just £8m! Liam Delap? I guess it’s “hard to compete” with Tractor money and Ed Sheeran Spotify streams. So fair enough. The final one is some chap called Cole Palmer. Again, Arteta watched this kid week in, week out at Citeh for years. And he came out of that with the conclusion that the best course of action would be to spend a combined £90m on a full back who cannot defend, and a “striker” who couldn’t finish a piss if you held his johnson for him.
Stewie Griffin (Replacing Dyche at Everton would have been the smart play for Arteta, although after 8 weeks of watching corner-ball, I’m guessing Everton fans woulda been begging to get Dyche back!)
READ: 16 Conclusions from Arsenal 1-1 Man Utd (3-5): Havertz and Gunners blow big chance, tentative United progress continues
An ashtray > Havertz
Not an Arsenal fan so love Stewie’s posts but calling Havertz an ashtray is a disservice – an ashtray is solid, hard and does exactly what is it supposed to do.
Gaz, CFC, Sidcup (would you rather Cole Palmer and £20m+ or an ‘ashtray’? 🤔)
Arsenal: Horrible to watch
At this particular stage of life, I’m not able to watch all that much football that doesn’t involve my team so am a bit baffled watching Arsenal today. The level of the ‘dark arts’ is pretty unprecedented from that particular club, imo.
This whole match, their strategy appears to (effectively) fake pain and suffering to get players booked, pass backwards until hoofing it to hopefully get a set-piece and then commit multiple fouls on each one of those, and hope to get away with it.
Again, it seems effective, but I thought Arteta was moving them in some great direction, all I see is expensive Stoke, but with much, much more diving.
Also, as a United fan, the amount of soft yellows and now reds we’re getting is an absolute joke. We need a Klopp or Fergie-esque rant. In all of the situations they’ve been borderline, but they’re all going against us these days.
Ryan, Bermuda (ref missing Gabriel injuring himself fouling Bruno from 5 yards away was pretty special)
That referee, man…
Arsenal should be beating United anyway but to be given so much help from the referee is a joke. He was dying to send a United player off. Nothing Arsenal do is a free but every time the wind changes they get one.
If they’re going to need every handout I hope Forest beat them to the league the cheating scum.
Anthony Fox
…So I just witnessed Dalot being sent off for a second yellow with a challenge much less dangerous than Bergveldt or whatever his name is.
Dalot slightly touched Martinelli while Berg cleaned the Greek Scouser out to the extent he required treatment and was subsequently off the pitch when Berg scored…..
But officials are doing fine… nothing to see here while El Presidente Webbez counts his millions ….
AFC just been given the dodgiest penalty you’ll ever see as well. What a dive from Havertz bravo.
Poor Scouse Tommy, Spion Kop Saffy
…This is the worst refereeing performance I’ve seen since United players smacked Arsenal players around in the league in 2004.
And this is why I know Arsenal will never win anything. Bunch of wimpy, whiny spineless players learning from their manager to make excuses and blame everything else.
That’s all.
A
…It’s been over 5 years not writing in, in fact, the last time I sent an email was when Wenger was still Arsenal manager.
I can’t believe that years later we still cry over a proper striker. Arteta knew we needed one over the summer and for the last 2 seasons but nothing was done.
I am watching this game and hope Man United wins it, even thought the referee seem to be favoring Arsenal.
We so poor, missed so many chances, Havertz is not good enough and no ways we going to win a trophy with him.
Lwazi (South Africa)
Come on Man Utd…
One of the rarest things I’ve experienced in football is cheering for Utd. This is one of those unicorn moments. Fair play, that was hilarious.
Aidan, Lfc ; )
…As any self respecting Liverpool fan I have always had a unhealthy disdain for Man United so imagine my surprise as I genuinely sat watching the demise of Arsenal with such glee.
I actually let out a little yelp when Odegaard missed the pen.
I was wondering why ? I think it because I cannot stand Arteta, his time wasting tactics, his plan to turn Arsenal into an expensive Stoke City, his excuses!
I was embarrassed when Klopp moaned about the wind causing a problem in a Liverpool game but when I heard Arteta morning about the football I snapped. I get he’s deflecting from his team but that was just utter guff.
He’s an average manager. He’s spent £750m to get no where. The media love him. Just like City so many neutrals now want Arsenal to lose even if it is against the only team in England that can rival Liverpool.
Maybe Pep and Arteta can join Barcelona again and make them amazing. Oh. Wait. They don’t have any money.
Bye bye arsenal fans. Hope you had a nice time thinking you could be a “ big “ club.
Ade – 20- is coming
Proper football that
3pm kick off.
Terrible refereeing.
Bit of a scrap.
A rendition of “you’re not singing anymore”.
How I’ve missed you old friend.
Paul (Manchester)
Badwolf, bad take
I can’t really understand what I am reading right now. These list of flops are absolutely insane. First of all, you think Jesus for 27m to Man City was a flop? The guy won 4 PL titles and scored 95 goals for them in 236 games. He had massive moments for them and was a very versatile player often playing on the right wing. He just seems like an easy target because he’s not prolific but the guy nearly scored 100 goals and wasn’t always a starter and wasn’t even expensive. So that’s wrong for sure.
You’re definitely being harsh on Balotelli too. The guy was there for like 2 seasons, had some very good moments. 30 goals for the club and also some important ones. He was inconsistent and obviously difficult to deal with but I’ve never heard anyone label him a flop. He was worth it for sure, he was a young player playing pretty much as a fourth back-up to Aguero, Dzeko and Tevez.
Ake was a success not even sure what you’re talking about here. Cancelo was at one point the best full back in the league if not the world. He didn’t last long but he was still a good player, so yes he was a success. You’re definitely taking the piss with Sterling too. The guy got 131 goals for City, won 4 titles and was runner up the VVD in the PFA POTY. He won the FWA POTY and was voted into the TOTY in 2019. He had 3 seasons where he got over 20 goals. He was pivotal in them winning the 2018 title with so many clutch last minute goals. You’re talking out of your arse lad. I didn’t even think any of these were debatable.
You threw in Rice and Havertz too, they’re not flops. They were both amongst our best players last season. They’ve both struggled lately but football fans are fickle. They’d rather focus on the last 4/5 weeks than the 18 months evidence prior to that. I wish people would write this sort of stuff in May last year when Rice and Havertz were performing brilliant. It’s easy to write it now when their form has dipped.
The Arteta spending nonsense is a myth. He’s spent more than other managers because we don’t sack our managers for fun like other teams. Ten Hag and Poch were spending more than him at United and Chelsea. Tottenham have spent pretty much the same as us since Arteta took over. I’m impressed with Liverpool. They consistently do well despite not spending loads.
Also, not sure if you’re a United fan or something but what on earth are you talking about saying the last 4 years has seen more hits than misses?!
Malacia – Miss
Antony – Miss
Mount – Miss
Onana – Miss mostly
Casemiro – Miss
Telles – Miss
Van De Beek – Miss
Sancho – Miss
Hojlund – Hasn’t been a success anyways but has time
De Ligt and Zirkzee have not impressed at all. I remember Gary Neville thinking in the summer that things would change at United and their recruitment was good. And he seemed to think that this was a shared opinion. United fans think the same shit every single summer. That this will be their year. They are literally the exact thing they used to mock in reference to Liverpool fans back in the day.
Dion
Stop putting off fascists!
I have been loyally patronizing your site since for what seems like an eternity (12 years) but the political shift over the past six years has really put a damper on the best football writing in the business. Whether it be Mediawatch or Nicholson, you can’t seem to escape the political editorializing which feels like a slap in the face to 50% of your customer base. Arseblog told half his audience they were fascists and should stop listening if they were right leaning.
I’m sincerely concerned this is sapping the immense joy this distraction (sport) provides – especially due to the over-commercialization that has occurred since the US/NBC TV rights deal.
Please consider refocusing you’re excellent work on to the beauty of the game itself and not the negativity that is sinking a lot of the world around us.
Best regards,
Chris
(Genuinely don’t know what prompted this; we haven’t written about the evils of fascism for ages. But no, we’re grand thanks – Ed)
