When it was decided that I should write the initial end-of-season review for a blog created in mid-season following the death of our great friend and inspiration, Dave “Goonerholic” Faber, I did, as is my wont, consider a number of ways of approaching it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Simple chronology would be a bit bland for a season that lasted almost a complete year and the reality was that the whole tenor of the piece would be determined by what happened in the very last game\u2026the FA Cup Final against Chelsea. I\u2019m sure anyone reading this will know that outcome but let\u2019s park that moment until later. I\u2019ve written a two-part review, each part divided into two sections – effectively before and after Arteta, because I think that is the right way to tell a very complicated story. Let\u2019s begin back last August with a bit of context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part One – The Fall of Emery<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As I chugged towards London from my holiday home in Norfolk my mood was optimistic. Arsenal had begun the season with a solid 1-0 win at Newcastle and were facing Burnley in our first game at the Grove. The previous season had ended on a thoroughly depressing note with defeat in the final in Baku, not just a defeat but a chaotic, depressing and mindless capitulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Action had been taken including the loan transfer of Dani Ceballos from Real Madrid, the acquisitions of Kieran Tierney and David Luiz on the last day of the window and the little heralded transfer of a young Brazilian, Gabriel Martinelli, facilitated by our new Technical Director Edu, one of the Invincibles. The big deal of our window was the \u00a372 million purchase of Nicolas Pepe from Lille, a winger with a spectacular resume and a deadly left foot. Some of this was financed at the eleventh hour by the extraordinary sale of Alex Iwobi to Everton for a sum in excess of \u00a330 million. Consider that the sale of Iwobi enabled us to finance the purchases of Tierney and Martinelli when you try to decide if last summer\u2019s trading was a success! In all we parted company with 17 players at various levels of the club. Tidy housekeeping although we were still burdened with the extraordinary salary of Mesut \u00d6zil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I returned a few hours later reasonably content with a hard-fought 2-1 victory in which Ceballos had run midfield in a very promising home debut and Aubameyang had done what he does best with a sharply-taken winner. When I reached Norwich I ran into ecstatic Canaries revelling in victory over Newcastle and a Pukki hat-trick. That memory shows how transient sporting happiness can be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We went to Anfield the following week reasonably content with our lot as joint-leaders of the division only to see Emery set the team up in an extraordinary way to combat the newly- crowned European champions. We decided to give the two best attacking full-backs in Europe free rein to attack us out wide but countered this by putting Pepe and Aubameyang upfront to test the speed of Liverpool\u2019s central defence. That might just have worked if we had gone long and hadn\u2019t tried to play through the thunderous gegenpress developed by Klopp, which eventually overwhelmed us. Add to that a stupid penalty conceded by Luiz (one of five during the season) and our goose was cooked. Ironically Pepe and Aubameyang had missed good chances early on but we got back into the game only when we completely rejigged the formation and our chances of any sort of result had long disappeared. That result started a number of supporters (myself included) wondering what Emery was really about. A 2-2 draw in the North London Derby saw us concede a poor goal and a totally unnecessary penalty after a horrendous Xhaka challenge but respond with a spirited comeback and a beautiful link-up between Guendouzi and Aubameyang for the equaliser. Gooner concern intensified in our next game away to Watford where 2-0 up at the interval we had to watch open-mouthed in the second half as Watford , who had zero points up to that moment, completely took over the game. Another penalty conceded by Luiz and a tragi-comic brainfart by the defence playing out from the back saw the game end in a draw and had it continued much longer we would undoubtedly have lost. Concern intensified still further after an interview with Captain Xhaka where he conceded that at 2-0 up at half-time against the league\u2019s bottom side the team were \u2018scared\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A series of better results followed including our entry into Europe where we won our first three games. This included a late comeback at home in October to Vitoria Guimares where Pepe scored two sumptuous late free-kicks in front of no less than Scruzgooner. The chance to meet him and Countryman100 that evening was one of the high spots for me of what was about to prove a rollercoaster season. One clear bright spot was the emergence of Gabriel Martinelli as an exciting and prolific young striker. This young man who was supposed to be one for the future, started to indicate that he might have a significant part to play in the present with seven goals in five starts. Results were decent but a 1-0 setback at Bramall Lane against a very well- organised Sheffield United side highlighted a depressing lack of creativity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rumblings about Emery\u2019s ability to take the team forward intensified. While results had been generally reasonable the quality of football was depressing and team morale seemed to start to suffer. We surrendered leads at home against Palace and Wolves and, in the former fixture had \u2018Xhakagate\u2019. As we struggled to restore the lead after scoring twice in the first ten minutes and then being pegged back, Emery substituted Xhaka to the approval of the home crowd who hooted their derision. Xhaka clearly swore at the crowd, ripped off his armband and made his disgust at the crowd\u2019s reaction clearly known. I watched the game with GSD and we were stunned by this display, especially as he was the club captain. It hinted at deeper problems in the dressing-room, and Emery dropped the Swiss international for the next five games. There seemed no way back for a man who tended to polarise opinion between those who couldn\u2019t stand him and those who disliked him even more than that! Sport writes surprising scripts, and the rehabilitation of Xhaka has been one of the most dramatic stories in the Arsenal season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fan dissatisfaction was growing and for me reached a head when the late November home game against Southampton saw us give what I still believe to be the most inept defensive display I have ever seen from an Arsenal side. It really was that bad. A bemused Southampton fan I met on the tube after the game asked me how Southampton hadn\u2019t scored at least six or seven goals. The answer was a combination of Leno and their appalling finishing. A last-minute Lacazette goal greeted with complete silence gave us a most undeserved point in a 2-2 draw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So widespread was the disillusion that a change seemed inevitable. While there was some disagreement in Goonerholic’s bar, the majority favoured Emery leaving as soon as possible. Others felt he should be judged when he had a full defence to work with as he had been denied the services of his two first-choice full-backs, Bellerin and Tierney, and Rob Holding at centre back. The difficulty was that Arsenal were losing touch with not only the Champions League places but the Europa League as well. In fact, the spectre of relegation would start to loom if Arsenal continued to defend as we had against Southampton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the following Thursday we played Eintracht Frankfurt at home needing only to win to qualify for the group stage. I took my brother-in-law, a long-suffering Fulham fan, to the match. My usual travelling colleagues had warned him not to expect much but as Eintracht took the lead with about fifteen minutes to go he conceded that he had absolutely no clue how poorly Arsenal were playing. As the whistle blew on a 2-1 defeat I watched a dejected Emery tramp towards the tunnel knowing that I would never see him in charge of an Arsenal team again. The following morning he was relieved of his duties and Freddie Ljungberg, another Invincible, placed in charge as caretaker manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Emery era was at an end after less than a season and a half. He had emerged as something of a \u2018bolter\u2019 in Summer 2018 after it looked as if Arsenal were minded to appoint Mikel Arteta. The ministrations of his agent Canales, a friend of Raul Sanllehi, earned him the chance to impress the Arsenal selection committee and as the safer option he was appointed to fill the very big shoes finally left empty by Ars\u00e8ne Wenger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Early indications were promising and in April 2019 we were in a superb position to qualify for the Champions League, possibly in third place, and we were poised to take part in the Europa League Final having vanquished Napoli and Valencia on their own grounds. Then came an inexplicable collapse in the league when Emery\u2019s rotational abilities came into question; this was followed by the debacle of Baku. I am told that the idea of a new contract for Emery was floated in the close season but vetoed by the Arsenal board. That saved a pretty penny in extra compensation down the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whilst as a poor linguist myself I am in no position to criticise someone who fails to come to terms with a language problem I always felt that the rather haphazard and often chaotic communication of Emery mirrored a confusion in his approach to the job. A decent man, he has resurfaced at Villareal and most decent Gooners wish him better fortune there than he enjoyed at Arsenal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Part 2 – We love you Freddie<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I have many memories of Freddie Ljungberg, nearly all of them immensely positive, but I\u2019d never expected to see him shivering on the early December touchline overseeing an underwhelming home defeat to Brighton in his first home game in charge, having drawn at Norwich in his first match where we came from behind twice thanks to an Aubameyang brace. While Freddie of the red hair became an unlikely interim manager, and certainly the first ex-underwear model to take charge of our great club, his work with many of the younger players and his link to happier and more successful times made him a sensible stop-gap. That he was likely to be no more was evidenced by that Brighton defeat and a subsequent humiliation at home by Manchester City who had Mikel Arteta sitting on the touchline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Freddie did shepherd us through to the knockout stage of the Europa on a chaotic night where a late Frankfurt collapse saw us top the group after we equalised late on in Belgium against Standard Liege. That seemed to sum up a very unusual and uneven qualifying campaign which had begun with a 3-0 win in Frankfurt. That encouraging win was a match notable for an excellent display by the reserve goalkeeper, Emiliano Martinez and a debut goal and stellar performance by young Bukayo Saka who began to emerge as one of the few success stories of the season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Saka was required to deputise for some time at left back for Tierney, who dislocated his shoulder in a morale-boosting 3-1 win at West Ham where we had trailed at the interval. Martinelli and Pepe (with a cracker) put us ahead and Aubameyang clinched a game which, if we\u2019d lost, would have seen us dragged into a relegation battle. After the subsequent City defeat Arsenal officials travelled to Arteta\u2019s house where a deal was agreed to bring him to Arsenal. Freddie\u2019s last game in charge was one of the worst Arsenal have taken part in during recent seasons, the pre-Christmas match at Everton – a stultifying, goalless draw. Everton themselves had recruited as manager the eminent Carlo Ancelotti. Many of the more risk-averse drinkers in ‘Holic’s bar favoured the sort of experience that Ancelotti could bring. Others felt that Arteta offered an exciting new vision of what Arsenal could be. Could he even steer us to a trophy this season? Surely that would be being too greedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we waved goodbye to Freddie after a six game interregnum. In the circumstances he had done a creditable job but was clearly not experienced enough to be a long-term solution. Would appointing an even younger man who had never been in full charge of a club not be an even bigger gamble? We were about to find out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When it was decided that I should write the initial end-of-season review for a blog created in mid-season following the death of our great friend and inspiration, Dave “Goonerholic” Faber, I did, as is my wont, consider a number of ways of approaching it. 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