Arsenal are easy to criticise at the moment.

Pundits know no matter what they say, it is going to get them plenty of attention. They are using Arsenal to further their own careers. But the tide is turning.

In recent days we have seen:

Matt Law of the Daily Telegraph mention that Arsenal were once offered Barcelona starlet Pedri when he was at Las Palmas.

Pedri would have been around 16 or 17 at the time and would have been touted around Europe by his agent. I imagine everyone – from Real Madrid to Manchester United, Chelsea to Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund to Liverpool were offered him.

In the end he joined Barcelona for €5 million.

Why did Matt Law decide to mention Arsenal missing the opportunity to sign Pedri, and not every single other top club other than Barcelona?

It would actually be more concerning if Arsenal did not know about Europe’s best young talents.

Then we have Sky’s Kaveh Solhekol.

What a fool he made out of himself on transfer deadline day, pretending that agents were calling him, text him, trying to get him to help with deals.

On deadline day, Kaveh “received a message” from one of Takehiro Tomiyasu’s “agents” about the new Arsenal player:

He said Tomiyasu “was offered to most clubs in the Premier League. His a good player but the problem his not really a right back nor is he a central defender. I am not sure how he will get on at Arsenal”.

Imagine being a professional journalist and reading out a text from a contact live on Sky. And imagine being an agent working on the deal and sending a journalist a critical text about your client.

Let’s be honest, the message was a figment of Kaveh’s imagination.

You have to wonder how such a nobody with a nothing sports journalism career got such a big role with Sky.

Then we have Gary Neville…

🗣 "They're spending a load of money – I'm not sure what the strategy is. It seems a little all over the place"

Gary Neville questions what Arsenal's transfer strategy is and says the club are still suffering from a hangover from their era under Arsene Wenger… pic.twitter.com/xVyKI6UKat

— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) September 1, 2021

Neville states that he is “not sure what the strategy is. It seems a little all over the place” when discussing Arsenal’s transfer strategy.

You only have to look at the profile of the players we have signed – 21 to 23 years old, young but with experience – to understand our strategy.

A baffling strategy is over at Manchester United who signed talented youngster Jadon Sancho to go alongside Marcus Rashford and Mason Greenwood – with Edison Cavani as the experienced head to knit them together.

They were crying out for a midfielder to do Paul Pogba and Brune Fernandes’s dirty work, but then on deadline day sign 36-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo to £500k a week. Now that is a transfer strategy that is all over the place; but Neville is oddly silent. Just like his criticism of the Glaziers seems to have gone silent.

What is interesting is any criticism of Neville’s comments was hidden by Sky Sports News Twitter account.

It shows a worrying trend of censorship by Sky Sports

They are happy their presenters criticising and abusing, inviting pundits on with a history of abuse. Employing an ex-player who spat at a fan. But if you criticise their pundits, call them out for being wrong, they will censor you

Finally we have Danny Mills.

Back in July, Mills questioned why Ben White had joined Arsenal.

“I think he’s better than Arsenal right now,” Mills told talkSPORT.

“I just wonder what his ambitions are. I’m surprised bigger and better clubs with more of a chance to win something haven’t come in for him.”

Then on Sky Sports News he states that he is unsure about the signing, that it is underwhelming and White does not improve the Arsenal team.

This is what happens when you do not actually share an opinion. When everything you say is to suit an agenda and you basically make up an opinion for hits, clicks and RTs. You end up eventually contradicting that opinion.

So Mills on one hand says White is too good for Arsenal, and then on the other that he does not improve Arsenal.

Each day a new pundit, presenter, journalist or ex-player criticises Arsenal, more and more fans stand up and call out their bullshit.

Between these pundits and the YouTubers, Arsenal fans are coming together. Becoming more united. The agendas are becoming clear and obvious and more and more are calling them out.

They know their days are numbered.

I look forward to fans sharing their opinions of them with them at Norwich. But then they will claim the victim…

Keenos

Transfer deadline day used to be an experience, almost a sport in itself. But yesterday it died – further highlighting how Sky Sports News is going down the pan.

It used to be great.

An overly excited Jim White next to a calm and composed Natalie Sawyer. Reports outside grounds surrounded by fans. Even if nothing was happening it felt like something was.

And then yesterday it was as dishwater, and almost became a box ticking exercise.

Sky had decided to remove everything that was great about transfer deadline and replace it their fake ITK journalists pretending to take phone calls, reading texts from “agents” and YouTubers sharing their “expert” opinion. Add in a splattering of footballers who achieved nothing and clearly just their for their £500 pay day and you end up with the disaster of a show we saw yesterday.

The two fellas that do the transfer round up. It was just cringeworthy the way they pretended that agents were contacting them whilst live on air.

We had Leanne Sanderson talking about her time in Italy for Juventus where she made just two appearances.

And then the YouTubers.

Sky are clearly trying to appeal to a younger audience by having YouTubers on everything; but how many times do we have to listen to a London based Manchester United talk about Arsenal?

Is there a warehouse of YouTubers somewhere in Chiswick that a Sky presenter just goes down to, picks one out and sticks them on TV? Everyone of them is a Londoner.

The young lady “representing Arsenal” was agreeing with tweets that Arsenal fans were racist just 2 days before. And now she is live on Sky?

Lee Hendrie was no better. What insight does he actually have?

Meanwhile on Twitter they are censoring any criticism by hiding any negative replies to their tweets.

It was just a shit show and what was a great TV event is no more.

The show has eaten itself.

It realised it was popular and became terribly self-aware; attempting to manufacture the incidents that made it popular. A bit like when Big Brother began to hand pick contestants rather than have a dozen random people.

In the end, I am not sure what it was supposed to appeal too.

The younger crowd would have been glued to their phones, getting their breaking news off Twitter whilst the older crowd would have soon turned off – or over to BBC5 Live.

No insight, no breaking stories. Just a bunch of people using a national TV show to promote themselves and increase their online following.

Sky Sports News. The End.

Keenos

It was always going to be tough for Arsenal to get more than 3 points from the opening three games.

Playing the English champions away and the European champions at home was always going to be tough start.

Most of us would have expected to get 3 points at newly Brentford and the optimistic amongst us would have argued for a home draw against Chelsea when the fixtures came out.

That home draw became unlikely as Arsenal players dropped like flies with illness and injury (Gabriel, White, Partey, Aubameyang and Lacazette all missing) and with Chelsea adding the formidable Romelu Lukaku.

But that defeat hurt. Not just as it was our best opportunity of 3 points but also the manner of it. We did not look prepared. Did not look ready.

Brentford looked hungrier. We put in one of those performances where it looked like we thought we only needed to turn up to win.

The defeat against Manchester City was predictable; we have not won at the Etihad since 2015.

So with the international break now upon us, Arteta needs to regroup and turn the ship around.

After the international break, Arsenal should have Aaron Ramsdale, Gabriel, Ben White, Thomas Partey, Alex Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang back fit and firing.

If you added Cedric Soares, Kieran Tierney, Albert Sambi Lokonga and Martin Odegaard, you would have 8 players who had been signed whilst Arteta was manager. Throw in Bukayo Saka and it is a starting XI.

So the excuses of it “not being Arteta’s players” is no longer relevant.

Add in the contract to Granit Xhaka, decision to keep Rob Holding, signing of Pablo Mari and Nuno Taveras and development of Emile Smith Rowe; the squad is almost full of players Arteta fought to keep.

So we come onto the next 10 Premier League games:

If you look at those 6 home fixtures, other than Spurs there are no real banana skins. And even with Spurs, they are a team we should be beating at home if we have ambitions of a top 4 finish.

You would feel disappointed if we came out of those 6 home games with anything less than 16 points.

I would say that 18 from 18 should be the minimum expectation; but realistically when was the last time we won 6 in a row at home?

As for the away games, we should not expect much from a trip to Liverpool but the other 3 – Burnley, Brighton and Leicester City – are all winnable.

That does not mean that I expect to win all 3. That would be an unreasonable expectation. But what would be reasonable?

2 wins and a draw? 2 wins and a defeat? Win, draw and loss?

I would probably say our best case scenario would be 2 wins and a draw. Our minimum expectation should be 4 points (win, draw and defeat).

That would leave Arsenal with 20 – 21 points from those 10 games.

Any less than 20 points, taking into account Arteta has the players he wants, we should be injury free and no European football distraction would be a failure.

I am not going to go as far as saying “if Arsenal do not get 20 points from 10 games Arteta should be sacked”, but if do not get darn close to it he should go.

Just 15 points from those games would be a huge underachievement.

Time and patience is running thing for Arteta. Whilst Edu and the Kroenke’s will not quickly fire the bullet (it would have happened already if they were trigger happy), a poor run of results in the next 10 games will surely be it for Arteta.

Keenos