Is playing in front of fans again good for everyone? Two Premier League managers are already sporting that haunted lookThree weeks into the Premier League campaign, the international break has presented us with an early opportunity to take stock. And while it’s far too soon to draw definitive conclusions from what we’ve seen, we must make do with what little evidence we have got.For the prognosis looks bleak. Given the predictably furious reaction that greeted the Arsenal social media team’s tone-deaf decision to flag up a behind‑closed‑doors training ground win over Brentford this week, we can probably safely assume that any plans to release a commemorative DVD of this stirring victory have, much like any realistic aspirations of a top-four...
Mikel Arteta’s side made basic errors in a predictable 2-0 defeat but it is the culture behind the scenes that is the real concernArsenal fans: honestly, what did you think was going to happen? Probably, in fairness, exactly that. Indeed, had you simulated this game several thousand times in advance, “an easy 2-0 milking for Chelsea with Romelu Lukaku running riot” would probably have been among the more common outcomes.All the same, there was a startling quality to the way Arsenal lost here. Not simply the speed of their capitulation but the sheer stupidity of it, the bone-headed determination to keep making the same elementary mistakes, the way the 11 on the pitch were pretty much the only people in...
With fans back at the Emirates, Sunday’s derby with Chelsea will show how much goodwill the manager has in reserveEverybody wants their own Pep Guardiola. Everybody wants to find a former player, steeped in the traditions of the club, who can bring great success, preferably by using products of the academy. But the problem with geniuses is that there aren’t many of them about.It’s also the problem of clubs: for all the talk of identities and DNA, very few of them actually have a cogent philosophy that binds first team to youth sides, or at least not one that has been in place for long enough to turn out a player who can return almost two decades after their debut...
A comprehensive defeat by Premier League newcomers Brentford laid the Gunners’ problems starkly bareMikel Arteta smouldered and in front of him, Arsenal wilted. A comprehensive defeat to exuberant newcomers, a clutch of experienced players absent and others simply missing in action: this was the stuff nightmare starts to the season are made of and, in a situation that he is aware demands freshness and optimism, the manager finds himself on the back foot before 18 of his rivals have kicked a ball. Brentford’s night was a triumph for Arteta’s opposite number, Thomas Frank, and the latest occasion that laid the visitors’ long-standing problems starkly bare. Frank had noted before the match that there is “a part in every single game...
With Bukayo Saka, Martin Ødegaard and Emile Smith Rowe, Arsenal can finally face manager’s old club on their own termsThe last time Arsenal hosted Manchester City for a top-flight fixture Mikel Arteta looked on and, inwardly at least, shook his head. He was five days from becoming their manager and, barking orders alongside Pep Guardiola in the away technical area, there were shorter-term preoccupations. It would have taken superhuman self-possession not to notice the gloom enveloping the Emirates, though, and the bad feeling affected him enough to be one of the first points he raised at his unveiling.“I was a little bit down after the game when I felt what was going on,” he said. “It wasn’t only the performance,...