The 2024/25 Premier League campaign is now almost at an end and with a tough clash against this years title winners Liverpool behind us, Arsenal go into the final two games of the season against Newcastle United and Southampton looking to go out on a high with two wins from two and all six points.
It has been a very mixed year for manager Mikel Arteta, and as Gunners fans will know, we have long known that we would be unable to capitalise on Pep Guardiola and Manchester City’s fall from grace as Arne Slot’s side just ran away with the domestic trophy, but unfortunately even second place and the runners up spot is not yet secured.
According to former England and Nottingham Forest left back, Stuart Pearce, it has been far from a disappointing campaign for our 43 year old Spanish gaffer though and he was happy to point out the positives he saw. Sitting down with former international colleague David Seaman on the Betway sponsored Seaman Says podcast recently, 63 year old Pearce covered a number of topics and explained that there remained improvement in consolidating our position as genuine title challengers.
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After a poor first half performance against Liverpool where we did look leggy from our efforts against Paris Saint-Germain in the second leg Champions League semi final loss, both felt the second half showing where we came from two down to take a point was exactly the reaction we needed – and the kind of reaction that shows we will again show further improvement in the season to come.
Most notably, they believed that we will better placed to handle a Champions League semi final challenge in the future, without it potentially impacting our league form when we progress further.
“It’s still an achievement, because a lot of those players had never played a Champions League semi-final. Now they’ve experienced that, so hopefully when we get there again, it’ll put them in a much better place. But they performed brilliantly, I felt. They had chances. Donnarumma made about three or four amazing saves, one unbelievable save from Odegaard. They had the chances. OK, we went out, but it was to a team that are now favourites to win it.”
Seaman added that he felt our gaffer would definitely have regretted his pre PSG words, as they were naturally turned back on us for a period by the Liverpool fans.
Pearce specifically felt that despite the natural disappointments that we would have this year, as we reflect Arteta would certainly see it as another step forward in his over all plan as we remained stable, the first team squad had been improved again, and we were more than in the mix again.
“I probably look at it from a coach or manager’s viewpoint and say, is there an upward trend at Arsenal? Are they a very stable club in what they’re trying to achieve? And the answer is yes. They’re permanently in the Champions League places, no doubt about that. They’ve probably been permanently one or two players away from really going to that next level. So I would stick with the manager. He’s a consistent manager who is growing and growing.”
Pearce is probably right on the ‘one or two players’ aspect, and one of those would most certainly be a died in the wool striker, which we still lack despite the January talk. Undoubtedly league wise the biggest failure was the number of draws we picked up, and with the right man at the top that should mean a number of extra points in 2025/26.
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