Is Ljungberg going to be allowed to stay till the end of the season? by Lagos Gooner
Hello Arsenal family; how are we enjoying Arsenal this period? Are we getting impressed by our new form now or do we still feel there is a long way to go? With just two days to our big match against Man City, are we positive in our expectations?
While brooding over the issue of a new coach for Arsenal, I came up with a conjecture as to why we have not appointed a coach, and I came to the conclusion that the club may actually be looking at allowing Freddie manage the team until the end of the season; and then appoint a new manager who will start afresh with Arsenal next season. I may be wrong but these are my reasons;
Now, our form since the beginning of this season has been inconsistent; as a result, our former coach was sacked and his assistant was appointed on an interim basis. To many people, he was appointed as a stop gap measure, but to me I feel he was appointed to stabilize the team, re-motivate the players and probably prepare the club for the arrival of a world class coach.
The club is in shambles at this moment and the club probably needs the help of a former player to try talking to the players; making them see why they need to put all their troubles behind them and start playing to make a name for themselves in the prestigious red shirt of Arsenal.
With no heavy pressure on Ljungberg, he will return Arsenal to winning ways; try ending the season on a high, win the Europa league and then leave the club for an incoming manager; probably for Pochettino.
The trend among the big clubs these days, seems to be to appoint a former player of the club to steady the boat temporarily, repair the strained relationships between the club and the players, and then re-build the confidence of the club’s under-siege stars. So far, Freddie is doing well in this regard.
Now, like I said earlier, my thoughts may not probably be the reason why the club has not announced a new manager yet but then, I am allowed to do a little guess work while awaiting the confirmation of a new manager, now or later. Bye for now.
Sylvester Kwentua
You skilfully say maybe we will and maybe we won’t. Rather like Corbyn over getting a new EU deal if he got into power. But just like you, he did not say which he would back and got widely scorned, rightly. Either give your own firm opinion or write nothing. Merely covering both possible outcomes is fence sitting and unworthy of an article. Just my take but I DETEST ARTICLES THAT SAY NOTHING CONCRETE, EVEN OF YOUR OWN FIRM OPINION.
Ummm…. Who said we don’t want politics on here my Lord?
Not about politics in case you had not noticed Pat. It was about a pointless article and I only used Corbyn as a relevant comparison and NOT as the point of my post.. Thought you would have realised that,being a man of your intelligence!
I’m sorry but your comparison is based on a political view; so your post is political.
Agree wholeheartedly, Sue. The issues that have brought Arsenal to their current situation, a “shambles” according to Sylvester are not recent. They won’t be changed unless a new head coach is provided sufficient funds for major surgery.
👍👍 spot on, Ozzie!
I dont think Freddy would captain this ship beyond January….He still experiments Emerys failed tactics..especially playing out from the back which is going to be a boomerang to him and the team… The whole world could see the vulnerability caused when playing out from back, slowing down the game and losing possession but Emery and Freddy couldn’t….In a way it cost Emery’s position and now its going to be Freddy…He totally forgot the attacking style he practised under Wenger as an arsenal player.. Unless he regain our attacking DNA and entertaining football he wont last long as Arsenal gaffer…
Do you know what, after reading a lot of comments (not just on here)… I’d love to see how some of us fans would get on coaching/managing the team. Freddie cannot perform miracles, unfortunately… and he has the same players as before.. a lot of us thought some were crap then.. so why would we think any different now?
Some could argue it was the same for Emery.. he had 18 months though…Freddie has had 4 games…plus injuries.. come on!!
Sue, see my response above, went in the wrong place!
Freddie is a lovely bloke and holding the fort while we get, hopefully, the right manager, which isn’t Freddie. Im sorry he is out of his depth, or should i say been chucked in at the deep end. Freddie will not be our next manager, we need to sort this situation out now, not after xmas, if possible. The longer Freddie is in charge the longer we take to get things put into place and sorted.
if we’re sticking with freddie we are giving up UCL hopes lets be honest here. I think if the board are going to Arteta it would be better to introduce him sooner rather than later if possible. If they are holding out for a more experienced manager then I imagine keeping freddie and chalking up this season as a failure is what they are going to decide. As others have said, he’s not about to perform any miracles. Very little experience, and low quality players in important areas.
What does it matter who is the next coach, when we still have the same underperforming players… Read an article, where AW said AFC has become unhuman. Too many administrators(from 80 to 750) who don’t care about team development at all, only about keeping their jobs…
Ljungberg’s fate would depend on the next five EPL games. Ljungberg is currently enjoying the honeymoon period with the players, as what Solskjaer experienced when he just took over from Mourinho
Once those moody players are bored with him, they might turn against him in the future. Gattuso also faced similar problems at AC Milan, thus Ljungberg has to be nice to the senior players as long as he is just a caretaker
A honey moon period we have drawn 2 , lost 1 and won since taking over ? The defense and midfield simply arent goof enough for a top 4 challenge. Unless we spend big in January we won’t get in the top 4. Our best and most realistic chance is to go for the Europa league. Our best chance for positive results is to play the with 4 forwards. A front line of Martinelli Pepe Saka Abameyang/Lacazette with Guendouzi and Torriera behind would be fun to watch.
We won’t get a new defender, but Ceballos will be back to improve the midfield
Arsenal have to play with maximum three forwards. Rather than having the fourth forward, we could have three midfielders to support the tridente
There’s no guarantees that the so-called world class manager would transform our team, we have seen many of them take up new appointments and failed woefully. For me, I think we should allow Freddie till season’s end and see, there’s an air of calmness and favour around him. If Barca hadn’t given Pep an opportunity from the B team the world won’t be talking good of him today. Better the angel you know than the one you don’t.
The key to me is realistic expectations.
Eddie Howe stays at Bournemouth because he is keeping the cherries in the PL.
If their fans change their tune and demand top 4 he will be gone by lunch time.
Wenger was retained at Arsenal because he made top 4 in a 4 team league.
When Leicester Spurs and Liverpool made it a 7 team league Wenger “failed”.
Now with Wolves Palace Sheff Newcastle Everton it is a 12 team league.
The PL landscape has changed but the fans expectations have not.
Emery actually did did brilliantly first season. 5th and EL final.
But the boards failure to strengthen in defence and unrealistic
top 4 expectations did for Emery.
Emery only lost 3 league games including Liverpool(1st) and Leicester(2nd)both away.
He and the players got 3rd after 8 games a point behind City but caved under fans unrealistic expectations of top 4 lost confidence and played not to lose.
Its almost like fans love to set unrealistic expectations so teams and managers “fail”
so the fans can moan their head off because its what they live for.
👍
@Lagos Gooner. Thank you for you fine article.
However when you wrote “With no heavy pressure on Ljungberg”. I had to smile 🙂
Freddie has inherited a team low on talent and low on confidence.
The fans have totally unrealistic expectations.
The central defence is laughably weak.
There has been the Ozil fall out and the Xhaka debacle.
Top full backs are injured.
Top strikers have been miss firing.
The club is said to be appointing another man as manager soon.
The team has a horrific next 14 game schedule.
Freddie has been dealt the hand of death.
No heavy pressure” 🙂 🙂 🙂
If Freddie ends up with the job until the end of the season it won’t be by design but shear incompetence of the board. It looks that the sacking of Emery was more reactionary than anything else. There was no planning whatsoever! And failing to plan is planning to fail…
Much like I said before, this club can’t leave this ill-prepared and ill-equipped manager in charge any longer than absolutely necessary or it will negatively impact our ability to re-sign our best talent, attract new talent and/or properly develop our young talent…Emery’s ultimate downfall was predicated on 3 things…his inability to get the players he wanted so that he could pursue his accustomed high press tactics, his unwillingness to eliminate his strategy to play out from the back even though we didn’t have the players whatsoever to adopt such a system and his scared tactics that were more about not losing than winning…so we give Freddie the interim tag under the guise that he was going to simply steer the ship to calmer waters until a “real” manager was appointed…I believe that our poorly run club mistakenly left him with the impression that by putting himself in the firing line he was likewise being considered as a serious candidate for the position…I find it hard to believe that even our pathetic board and it’s absentee landlord could be so thick as to believe that he was truly a plausible replacement, unless this was just another case of our frugality winning the day again over common sense…unfortunately this created another problem because Freddie the wannabe manager isn’t going to take the necessary chances from a tactical or selection perspective that the nothing-to-lose Freddie might, and that it the Freddie this club needed in the short-term…in the 4 games he’s managed we won once, after 9 minutes of top level football, he is still having us playing out from the back, he still has us playing sideways/backwards scared football and we still haven’t seen our best 11 out there together, which likely won’t happen this season due to our injury issues…furthermore I believe Freddie had no business being on the sidelines this season, but was placed there as a somewhat go-between for the players who were having difficulty with Emery…there is no way Emery asked for this, as he was never going to take advice or ask for Freddie’s input…might have been a sort of Bould-like punishment scenario imposed by the club due to the bad run of form at the end of last season…we need REAL solutions very soon!!!