And statements like that are why folk have a go at giddy Arsenal fans.
Mikel Arteta | Lego Pep watch
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
And statements like that are why folk have a go at giddy Arsenal fans.
Tbf it wasn't delusion when Ferguson was manager. But yeah assuming we'll win 3 games in hand these days is pure lunacy.
Carrick's United would have beat Newcastle comfortably yesterday.. 
Xhaka is very limited, if Arsenal have CL level ambition then will move him over the summer. Laca is not extending his contract, also he isn't a 20 goal a season striker which Arsenal needs desperately.
Striker & CM are two areas Arsenal need upgrades to challenge consistently for top 4.
When Arteta took over, Arsenal were 11th in the table on 23 points, 18 games into the season, so halfway. I have no idea why you're ignoring the 6 games Freddie was in charge for, considering we only got 6 points in that time which hindered Artetas start a decent amount, but you do you. For the remaining 18 games that season (half the season so a reasonable sample, he got 33 points), 1 less than Chelsea who finished 4th. 33 points for his first season in charge was a reasonable amount, I wouldn't really expect anymore, and to top it off, he won the FA cup beating some big sides along the way. So, to me that is a successful start.
He then had a very poor say 5 months at the start of his second season, which i'll happily admit had many people criticising him including myself, where he tried to force Willian into the side, and we lacked any creativity at all in the team. Then for the Chelsea game he scrapped the 5atb formation and went with a number 10. Ever since that game against Chelsea, for the past 12 months he's had a very good record, exceeding expectations.
So in general, he's had a poor 5 months, and also the loss to Villarreal was dissapointing. But, he's had a successful 18 months and a cup win in and around that, so overall i'd say he's doing just fine as manager and he's learning from his mistakes, which is something I want to see as time goes on. No Arsenal fan should have expected him to come in and just solve everything. Our squad wasn't in good enough shape for it, and we had no real style of play or identity. He was always going to have bad periods, and may well have some more in the future. But, in general he's been more positive than negative.
Now if you want to say he finished 8th twice so he's rubbish, that's upto you, but it's such a completely basic way of looking at it. If you want to say his second season he was poor for finishing 8th, then I can understand that for sure. But to say his first season was poor is stupid, because it just wasn't. How you can say he finished 8th and that's all his fault when he got almost 33% more points in his period than the first half of the season is just illogical.
The standards of our club have to adapt. We went from losing Wenger who was there for a huge time, to having to completely rebuild the structure of the club. This was never going to magically happen overnight. It took United years before they became a respectable name again after SAF. It's taken us 2 years to get into a position where maybe we can get into the CL again. We should be aiming to be a CL club, so to me we are right on track with it. You are the one who really seems to be ignoring context here.
This was the squad for Artetas first game in charge: The bold have all left or are on the way out. 6 players out of 18 remain. He's done a complete rebuild of the squad in 2 seasons, on top of trying to get the clubs identity back and stay competitive in the league. Saying all this, I want us to finish in the top 6 this season at the least and remain competitive for the top 4 till the end of the season. Anything less, and I will be dissapointed, but so far so good.
Leno
AMN - Luiz - Sokratis - Saka
Torreira - Xhaka
Nelson - Ozil - Auba
Laca
Martinez
Mustafi
Mavrapanos
Guendouzi
Willock
ESR
Pepe
I would love to replace Xhaka with Kalvin Phillips and I’d snap up Greenwood if he can’t get game time at OT
You can't afford him. Maybe Sam Greenwood, you can.
He‘s got, what, 18 months left on his contract? He’s clearly not progressing with you lot. I imagine he’d jump at the chance to play alongside other English youngsters like Saka, ESR, White and Ramsdale, not to mention exciting talents like Odegaard and Martinelli. Of course he’s affordable given you lot not playing him is likely to drive values down not up.
He has contract till 2025 with option to extend for one more year. Re the rest of the post, all I can say is
. Greenwood jumping at the chance to play for Arsenal, two more wins and Neymar will be waiting outside Emirates with his own pen to sign Arsenal contract.And how the feck this narrative that Geenwood is not playing started? He started 11 league games, 3 CL games. He was also out injured/Covid. So he is playing regularly. If anything, you can sign de beek. He barely gets a game.
Greenwood is 9th in league mins for Manutd. He is also 9th in total mins played by outfield player.
So Greenwood with 11 league games out of 17 is not playing regularly (also missing few games with Covid) but Arsenal players
ESR - 13 starts in 19 games
Odegaard - 13 starts in 19
Martinelli - 8 starts in 19 are regular players. Also ManUtd played in CL, so they had to rotate the team, Arsenal don't even have that excuse.
He has contract till 2025 with option to extend for one more year. Re the rest of the post, all I can say is
And how the feck this narrative that Geenwood is not playing started? He started 11 league games, 3 CL games. He was also out injured/Covid. So he is playing regularly. If anything, you can sign de beek. He barely gets a game.
Greenwood is 9th in league mins for Manutd. He is also 9th in total mins played by outfield player.
So Greenwood with 11 league games out of 17 is not playing regularly (also missing few games with Covid) but Arsenal players
ESR - 13 starts in 19 games
Odegaard - 13 starts in 19
Martinelli - 8 starts in 19 are regular players. Also ManUtd played in CL, so they had to rotate the team, Arsenal don't even have that excuse.
Leaving aside the whataboutery, so why is his agent punting him around?
Explain why you dissent from that view
I understand from your points breakdown (23, 33) that you are not counting the Everton game as Arteta's first, which is fair since he'd only been appointed very recently. That means there should be 20 games for Arteta, not 18.
33/20 is 1.65. 23/18 is 1.28. This means that, under Arteta, the performances improved by 0.37 points per game compared to the rest of the season.
I would expect PPG to improve under a new manager, because the reason you fire a manager is that performances are not up to par. The question then, is how much improvement should we expect. I found this quantification:
So there is a difference of 0.3 PPG when you change manager. Very close to the 0.37 PPG difference between Arteta's stint and the rest of the season. To me this shows the pitfalls of making these type of comparisons, and why it is difficult to separate the influence of the manager from everything else.
That leaves me with judging pure outcome, the league placement, which wasn't good. That's not 'all his fault' of course. By definition, he wasn't the manager the whole time. Is that fair? Not really. If Arteta had died in a tragic asteroid incident after the 2019-2020 season ended, I would just not have an opinion. The problem is he didn't; instead, he had a bad second season where he finished 8th after hovering between 9th and 10th for most of it. If I combine the two, the overall picture is grim.
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Genuinely, do you think Greenwood - among the brightest young players in England right now - will jump at a chance to play for Arsenal, who haven't qualified for CL in 5 years?
I'm certain we won't let him leave -his contract is till 2025, but even if he does leave for some reason, he'd go to a bigger team than Arsenal, with all due respect to you guys.
I guess I should take that as a compliment, considering Arsenal were a considerably better team a decade ago than they are right now!
Because that all depends on viewpoints. Utd have a much more experienced, quality squad than ours that is just underperforming. They could & perhaps should still finish ahead of us this year. A manager like Tuchel or Conte has already shown that you get the right top class coach in, they can make an instant impact.
That's just Utd. I fear you are jumping the gun for where we are. Sure, we are in a good run, & things look up, but all it takes is a couple of defeats, say to City, Liverpool & Spurs over the next few weeks, & the dynamics change again, & pressure will likely be on Arteta again.
Even if you do feel that way, it's not really the done thing to go on a rivals forum & say they are 2 years behind any club, never mind behind a club that hasn't finished ahead of them in the league for a few years.
C'mon mate, your not doing our credibility any good on here!
Given their new manager faces the same problems we had 2 years ago with lots of deadwood, old players that needed to be cleared out, I’d say the comparison is valid. Maybe explain why you disagree?
Where?
No smoke without fire, the leaks to the press suggest he’s not happy. Who knows, come the end of the season we might be higher placed than you lot. I agree he’s a great talent, though.
Press reports of his unhappiness and being linked to Arsenal. Google it.
I wanted him sacked from around Christmas last season, and that feeling hit fever pitch a few weeks into this season. Though recently he's slowly started turning it around, which is a credit to him.
I may not rate him that highly (currently), but I sure do want him to succeed.
On a related note - if he has as much of a say in our most recent transfer dealings then the garbage and predictably laughable deals for Willian, Soares and Mari plus the Xhaka extension (all Arteta endorsed) can be forgiven.
I may not rate him that highly (currently), but I sure do want him to succeed.
On a related note - if he has as much of a say in our most recent transfer dealings then the garbage and predictably laughable deals for Willian, Soares and Mari plus the Xhaka extension (all Arteta endorsed) can be forgiven.
The deadwood that our fans say - will be out this season as most of them are out of contract - Lingard, Mata, even Pogba. Cavani is leaving as is. Jones, Matic might leave as well. So, among the older players- it's just Ronaldo.
I mean we haven't played well, but that doesn't make AWB, Maguire, Shaw, Fred, McT, etc deadwood ffs
You're dreaming mate.
One trophy shouldn't be used strongly to access him either way, Pulisic doesn't pull up and it's Lampard lifting that trophy, would that alone have suddenly stopped everything that went wrong for us the following year?
Nice moment in isolation but look at the list of managers who have lifted the domestic cups this side of the millennium, should big clubs be looking at Redknapp or McLeish?
I don't have to Google it, the shit has been posted here and everyone laughed at the source.
Do you believe everything that's reported by Sun, Mirror and other shit papers?
No one believes that garbage, bar maybe him.
It's all different expectations. We finished 2nd and 3rd but we feel we have Deadwood and lot of them as we didn't finish first. Arsenal finsihed 8th and now in 4th position (which they obviously will lose) and they think they have awesome squad. It's all about expectations.
Yeah, it takes maybe couple of mins to verify the sources. No wonder he is in some fantasy world.
And his agent decided to leak this to Fijaches and El Nacional? Because those were the only 2 sources I was able to find.
And look, he's neither unhappy nor getting limited minutes - if anything, atleast under Ole he was given more chances than he deserved at times at the start of last season (under RR, it's too early to say anything). So even if you do finish higher in your wild scenario, and Mason hands in a transfer request in that weird scenario, why do you think he'll go to Arsenal of all clubs! You aren't CL regulars, and there's nothing to suggest you're on the verge of some breakout season
See the post above the 1 I've just quoted.
Well said. Anyday I would rate a manager more that finished 3rd and 2nd in his full season than a manager who finished 8th.
I don’t think there’s any hope in hell of Greenwood moving from United to Arsenal. I think he’s be a brilliant addition to that arsenal side, but I don’t see why he’d make the move.
I can understand arsenal fans optimism but they should not be too giddy here. Their next two games in PL is city and spurs. Win or get 4 points from those two then some may accept things are slowly turning for good but chances are they lose both the games and all comes back to square one.
Probably more chance of Saka moving to Man Utd than Greenwood moving to Arsenal.
We'll have to agree to disagree, because you seem to be a rare person who thinks the overall picture is grim.
His first season for the games he was in charge, he was in the top 6 relatively, and won an FA cup, which is a perfectly fine start.
His second season started terribly, we were very poor for the first 15 games of the season which set a bad tone for the whole season. But ever since then he's completely turned it around. So, yes, he's had a bad spell of 15 games out of a total of around 75 games.
If you want to focus on that period and not look into the whole picture than that's upto you, but he has shown enough over the past year to show me there's progress to be made.
But, I will say the last step is to cement this over a 38 game season, as I agree that is the final and biggest test.
That’s just setting a very high bar. City is the best side in the world and in full flow right now. Getting any result there would be a big positive but a loss is basically expected and really wouldn’t change my view of Arsenal’s current trajectory (on the upswing but not anywhere near City’s level).
Really? I'd like something from City, but equally as long as we don't get rolled over then it is what it is. They are literally in full force right now.
Spurs, i'd like at least a point but again, they're at home and in good form.
Not sure the results will determine anything, but I would like to see us put up a fight in both games.
If you want to truly progress you actually have to start getting results in the big games especially at home.
You can't keep treating these games as free hits forever, especially in the form you're currently in.
However, ultimately you have to start competing with these clubs. You can't just write these big games off and then call that progress. If that is progress why even sack wenger. Going there and losing 2-0, 3-0 is not a progress.