We’re not all the same.
I’m Slot out but I’m pretty calm because I’ve prepared myself to wait until he leaves in 2027.
At least in the Slot debate I think you’re a bigger ‘problem’ than me.
If this place turns into Arsenal Fan TV during WengerOut remember that the Robbie guy was a big part of the mess. So who’s the moderator in here?
Yeah I think this is an important point and, from outside, seems the obvious backroom change that has impacted us.
Genuine question. So for you, is it just two seasons of resignation, this season and next, waiting it out until Slot departs?
Or do you hope for anything between now and then? Or look forward to anything?
It’s inexplicable that we’d be struggling with fitness issues. I’ve heard players describe our preseason fitness routine as quite extreme.
I know some of these players are playing a lot more than they have before. But that’s not unique for premier league players. That’s not unique by comparison to last season, when Slot famously rarely rotated.
I think that they’re knackered is a testament to how taxing the season has been mentally. Every match feels like a fight for survival. There’s little joy out there - more like relief.
This is the definition of small club mentality. No team is winning the Premier League every single season and Champions Leagues wins are once a decade unless you’re Real Madrid or a generational team. Accumulation of trophies in the intervening periods are what makes managerial reigns great and not just a flash in the pan. We’ve sacked off the League Cup, sacking off the FA Cup with the League itself being so dire would be Wengeresque and I don’t think we should be going that route.
The lactate test in preseason was replaced by a 6 min race test. Maybe that’s got something to do with the team’s fitness
I’m glad the issue of our fitness levels is being brought up more often. Again, there were signs last season, but I just put it down to the effort we exerted into winning games during the first two-thirds of the campaign.
If there is an issue with how we’ve prepared during pre-season, then it’s not going to get fixed until the summer, and it’s going to be brutal watching us in the second half of games.
It should be evident by now that the preseason preparation was well below par.
That’s when the foundations for the upcoming season are laid and the lacking fitness, the piss poor set pieces and the inexistent patterns of play can all be attributed to the quality of the work that was done during the summer.
Now it’s too late to remedy anything. We are going to be struggling until May.
While I’m grateful for the win. Pleased we didn’t fold to a bottom 3 team like we have done on numerous occasions. I’m just not liking the way we are going about our business. It’s seriously slow and boring.
.
I hope it’s only me but at the moment I don’t actually enjoy watching. It just seems like we are going about our business hoping we win rather than forcing the point.
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Still happy with the win. Pleased we are moving in the right direction. I just want the team to go bang.
for those lamenting our preseason, apart from the very real and obvious tragedy, we wont get a pre season like it again for a while, we basically fobbed off the back end of last seasons 3/4 weeks, had no world cup or euros to deal with, and didnt even go on a ridiculous pre season tour ( from memory, might be wrong there)…
if Slot didnt get what he needed out of that pre season (Jota included) then the chances of next year being an improvement are slim.
i dont think its physical fatigue.
i could be convinced its mental fatigue at a push…but even then, the lads that saw people pass infront of them at hillsborough went on to win the league the following year, i dont mean that as some klopptomist victorian era bravado, i mean it as once the fitba is on, you lose yourself in the game…so i dont really want to lean too much into the grief reasoning. (but probably happy to be corrected on that aswell)
I think everyone, including Citeh and Arse will be dropping points. If we can go on a run, no matter how gritty our matches are, we can do a lot better than we were looking after the Forest home match.
Third, even second place may not be out of the question. Arsenal feels like they’re buying into their own hype while at the same time really feeling the pressure of being favourites. City is still not settled with the new players…was watching an interview with Silva (not by choice) and he was saying they have a whole raft of new players that will need time bedding in.
My sense as well. I would be very surprised to find out that our Vo2max numbers etc. are significantly worse than over the last two seasons. Although the Jota factor is likely there, my guess is the mental fatigue is from struggling with the team concept, what the patterns of play are meant to be, etc. It may not be mental fatigue at all, just slow collective decision-making. The second half yesterday looked very much like a team asked to make changes which it then struggled to implement.
There is a lot about our performances that you would expect to see if our fitness had dropped off. I also think it’s pretty easy to picture how we might have got there given what the players were saying last year about the notable change in in pace and focus of the training. That isnt something that will hurt you immediately, and might even help for several months, but over months as the previous base of fitness drops, you will eventually look a different side. Maybe that is where we are now.
But its’ not an adequate explanation for the lack of cohesion we started the season with. What seems to me is that is the primary issue. We’ve been playing all season like nothing is on auto pilot and everything is having to be thought through in real time from first principles. The psychological stress of that is tiring, but it also brings in a lot of wasted physical effort that adds up as well. Most of all, it is a very delicate foundation. In the face of even trivial set backs players can lose confidence in our collective ability to respond or in their ability to execute their individual responsibilities in it that response. That fits pretty tightly over what we’ve seen for most of this season.
As for the specifics of the game, for all the praise Wirtz rightly got I thought Jones deserves a special mention. Was it 2 summers ago when he anchored the U21s to a dominating Euro win from a deep midfield playmaker role, mostly alongside Angel Gomes, and people doubted his suitability for that at the senior level? Yesterday that was how he played and I thought he was commanding, both in an out of possession. We looked far better at getting the ball into the areas of the pitch we want to play in than we have for a while.
This has been a stick that lots of people have used to beat Slot. I said before that when he starts a game people will realise why he doesn’t start more. Can do a job as an impact sub when game is a bit chaotic, but no way he’s good enough to start regularly. Seems a nice guy but mostly a headless chicken on the pitch
I don’t know what you expected him to do. He was tidy, kept things ticking and had a few moments. He could have been more involved but all in all he wasn’t worse than most of his teammates. He definitely did not frustrate like Gakpo has been doing for months.
Also, let’s not forget that he had a total of 150 minutes playing time in 4 months before yesterday. If anything, it speaks to how poor of a job Slot has done over a season and a half in keeping fringe players fit and able to contribute for more than a few minutes here and there.
Gakpo has frustrated me also but he does have more goals+assists than anyone bar Mo over the past few seasons
I feel like we also have to take a look at our set piece appointment.
Yeah, sack him!!
Thought we lost our compact middle when Bradley came on for Chiesa because Frimpong stayed out wide and there was no longer a presence there. With Bradley making his runs inside there was a bit of a gap in coverage at the top. Not unlike before with Mo sticking wide.
Slot’s job is to win games. He won enough of them to secure us a title but you’re annoyed he didn’t rotate more to keep the likes of Chiesa match fit.
If Chiesa was deserving of more minutes he’d be getting them. The less he plays the more some people seem to overestimate him because when he does play he’s generally very average.
Slot has contributed and delivered far more than Chiesa in the last two years yet one is supposedly hard done by and the other is doing a poor job. It’s quite laughable really.