Dream to a nightmare
ARTETA’S FLOP GUNS JUST SLEEPWALKING
MIKEL ARTETA insists he wouldn’t be still sitting in the Arsenal hotseat if he didn’t think he could succeed.
You’ve got to admire the bloke’s optimism, because he now has a job that is the footballing equivalent of pushing water uphill.
The Gunners have become one of the most pitiful narratives of English football in recent times. We are now all witnessing the genuine decline of one of the bastions of the game.
The fact Arteta’s men are struggling to beat Slavia Prague just to reach the semi-finals of the Europa League speaks volumes for how far the club has fallen.
It feels ironic that someone called Tomas Holes scored a dramatic late equaliser at The Emirates to leave Slavia in pole position to dump the Gunners out of Europe.
That’s because Arteta is now in the deepest of holes himself – and it’s difficult to see how he will be able to extract himself from it.
The Gunners, once top dogs of English football, are in 10th place in the table, level with Leeds and closer to the relegation zone in terms of points than the top.
They have not kept a clean sheet in their last 14 games in all competitions and are without a win since the middle of last month.
Little wonder when you have a talisman like Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Having won the Gunners the FA Cup last season, the Gabon international used it as a platform to net a new £55million deal out of club bosses at the age of 31, before vowing to become a “legend”.
But instead of emulating the likes of Ian Wright and Thierry Henry, Aubameyang has become a legend in his own lunchtime.
He’s scored just three goals in his last 10 games, become a passenger in the team and now gives the impression of someone who personifies a lot of what is wrong with the attitude and culture of the club.
But he’s not alone in that.
Willian joined the
Gunners on a three-year deal worth £225,000 a week last August at the ripe old age of 32 and has been as dangerous as a wet sponge, while Pepe has provided just nine goals this season, despite costing £72m from Lille.
The common denominator for all the problems in north London is American owner Stan Kroenke and the people he surrounds himself with, like chief executive Vinai Venkatesham.
The former oil trader with a masters degree in economics is now wading through treacle instead, staring at frightening numbers that just don’t add up. The Gunners need a serious reboot from top to bottom and even this might not be good enough to see them become a force once again.
Which leads to serious doubts about the long term futures of the likes of Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe. The question these two should now be asking themselves is not, ‘How long am I staying at Arsenal?,’ but, ‘Why the heck would I want to stay at all?’ MISFIRING: Arteta has been let down by Aubameyang