Mikel Arteta, success or failure? - Merged thread.

[augie]

I fear the club with go down the shitter once he leaves but not because of his amazing management skills.

Saliba and Saka will be off soon.

The owners would give the next manager near as much to spend

Mark my words Saliba will feel no loyalty to the cone boy - loyalty to the other players for sure, loyalty to the club and fans maybe, but if Saliba (or any other player) realises that the cone boy wont help them win the big prizes, then they will be off like a shot cos they know their career is too short to waste time

[augie]

Had a few mins to spare so I flicked back and read the first 8 pages of this thread to see where we were in our thinking back then to where we are now, and some things stood out -

1. I remember being against appointing the cone boy from back when Dick got the job, so I am shocked that my first few posts on his appointment were actually positive I mentioned how his demeanour had impressed me in the press conference when he was unveiled as manager, and that sounded encouraging. Dont get me wrong cos I dont think I ever believed that he was the right appointment, but it does seem from reading my past messages that I was more level and willing to give him a chance than I thought I was

2. Loads on here referenced his comments about dealing with the senior players when he was appointed, and all were encouraged and suggested that it sounded like he was the man to sort them out and get arses back into line - turns out though that for all his good intentions he had no more of a grip on them than Dick did, and it took the club paying them to fcuk off to get the club back on track. It always baffles me how the cone boy gets credit for how he dealt with those players when the reality is that he couldnt control them either, and it was club money rather than managerial skill that turned it around.

3. Steve O was the one who came out strongest against diet pep and correctly cited the comparisons to wenger and his worship of the old fraud

4. If fans were told straight out on day one that legohead's plan was to get rid of players like auba, laca, ozil etc, but build a team around the swiss turd, I doubt if 1% of the fanbase would have backed him. It baffles me how understated that decision was taken by the fans - seeing him rate the swiss turd as highly as he did, should have raised a MASSIVE red flag for the fans about his judgement, but even though many grumbled it seems like they accepted it as a by product of the cone boys plan

[DB10GOONER]

Had a few mins to spare so I flicked back and read the first 8 pages of this thread to see where we were in our thinking back then to where we are now, and some things stood out -

1. I remember being against appointing the cone boy from back when Dick got the job, so I am shocked that my first few posts on his appointment were actually positive I mentioned how his demeanour had impressed me in the press conference when he was unveiled as manager, and that sounded encouraging. Dont get me wrong cos I dont think I ever believed that he was the right appointment, but it does seem from reading my past messages that I was more level and willing to give him a chance than I thought I was

2. Loads on here referenced his comments about dealing with the senior players when he was appointed, and all were encouraged and suggested that it sounded like he was the man to sort them out and get arses back into line - turns out though that for all his good intentions he had no more of a grip on them than Dick did, and it took the club paying them to fcuk off to get the club back on track. It always baffles me how the cone boy gets credit for how he dealt with those players when the reality is that he couldnt control them either, and it was club money rather than managerial skill that turned it around.

3. Steve O was the one who came out strongest against diet pep and correctly cited the comparisons to wenger and his worship of the old fraud

4. If fans were told straight out on day one that legohead's plan was to get rid of players like auba, laca, ozil etc, but build a team around the swiss turd, I doubt if 1% of the fanbase would have backed him. It baffles me how understated that decision was taken by the fans - seeing him rate the swiss turd as highly as he did, should have raised a MASSIVE red flag for the fans about his judgement, but even though many grumbled it seems like they accepted it as a by product of the cone boys plan

Context is everything. No real point in looking back at old posts - saying he impressed us at a press conference - with the jaded eyes his resulting failure have given most of us.

I did not want him appointed but felt he should be supported until he proved whether he was good enough or not. Which I think was the majority view, despite what the cultists would try and have us believe.

[DB10GOONER]

I fear the club with go down the shitter once he leaves but not because of his amazing management skills.

Saliba and Saka will be off soon.

The owners would give the next manager near as much to spend

I'm assuming there's a typo in that last sentence?

[IW8Goalmachine]

I fear the club with go down the shitter once he leaves but not because of his amazing management skills.

Saliba and Saka will be off soon.

The owners would give the next manager near as much to spend

I'm assuming there's a typo in that last sentence?

I did notice that myself

[augie]

According to Daily Mail we are 7pts worse off than we were at this stage last season, but citeeh are just 3pts worse off

[OneBardGooner]

I fear the club with go down the shitter once he leaves but not because of his amazing management skills.

Saliba and Saka will be off soon.

The owners would give the next manager near as much to spend

I'm assuming there's a typo in that last sentence?

Don't you mean Tipo !?

[Retro Gunner]

We could have gone the bold way and chased Pochettino. Granted he might have declined and chose to wait for United to finally give Ole the sack. But we went the easy way and gave it to Arteta. Such a uninspiring choice, a figure who commands no respect or headway in the wider football community. A Wenger lite persona who will not address the deep rooted problems Wenger left us is. I would have preferred to keep Freddie, or even give Patrick Vieira a go.

I cant believe the state we are in. 10th at Christmas, negative goal difference. There are 15 clubs that have won more games than our 5 this season. PEA will leave, as rightly so he is good enough for Barcelona/Real Madrid. We are all over the shop & unless we sort it out we could end up being no better than Everton or Newcastle - place range expectations from 10th to 6th.

I decided to read back the comments in those early pages, as augie has done and found this from Wilson on page 12.

He was so pissed off with the Arteta apppointment, that I'm surprised he didn't suggest hiring De Zerbi instead.

[BFG4]

Arteta gets called "diet Pep" on here alot but to me, he is a Wenger clone. I lost count of the amount of times that we were in need of a player in a certain position and Wenger's arrogance meant we never signed them, exactly what Arteta Is doing when we need a striker. Add to that, the Wengeresque inability to let go of dud signings. Zinchenko and Jesus should be nowhere near the club yet Zinchenko started last Wednesday and Jesus came on as a sub on Sunday. That's before you get on to his bizarre obsession with putting an absolute finished Martinelli back in the team whenever he can.

[DB10GOONER]

We could have gone the bold way and chased Pochettino. Granted he might have declined and chose to wait for United to finally give Ole the sack. But we went the easy way and gave it to Arteta. Such a uninspiring choice, a figure who commands no respect or headway in the wider football community. A Wenger lite persona who will not address the deep rooted problems Wenger left us is. I would have preferred to keep Freddie, or even give Patrick Vieira a go.

I cant believe the state we are in. 10th at Christmas, negative goal difference. There are 15 clubs that have won more games than our 5 this season. PEA will leave, as rightly so he is good enough for Barcelona/Real Madrid. We are all over the shop & unless we sort it out we could end up being no better than Everton or Newcastle - place range expectations from 10th to 6th.

I decided to read back the comments in those early pages, as augie has done and found this from Wilson on page 12.

He was so pissed off with the Arteta apppointment, that I'm surprised he didn't suggest hiring De Zerbi instead.

[Retro Gunner]

We could have gone the bold way and chased Pochettino. Granted he might have declined and chose to wait for United to finally give Ole the sack. But we went the easy way and gave it to Arteta. Such a uninspiring choice, a figure who commands no respect or headway in the wider football community. A Wenger lite persona who will not address the deep rooted problems Wenger left us is. I would have preferred to keep Freddie, or even give Patrick Vieira a go.

I cant believe the state we are in. 10th at Christmas, negative goal difference. There are 15 clubs that have won more games than our 5 this season. PEA will leave, as rightly so he is good enough for Barcelona/Real Madrid. We are all over the shop & unless we sort it out we could end up being no better than Everton or Newcastle - place range expectations from 10th to 6th.

I decided to read back the comments in those early pages, as augie has done and found this from Wilson on page 12.

He was so pissed off with the Arteta apppointment, that I'm surprised he didn't suggest hiring De Zerbi instead.

To be honest, that first paragraph is pretty much bang on. Wenger lite indeed. Baffling that someone can go from that opinion to the polar opposite on the basis of no tangible success from Arteta.

Are we in better shape than we were 5 years ago…yes in my opinion, but I should fucking well expect so given the time and money extended. Has Arteta done enough to gain unequivocal support…absolutely not, again in my opinion. One FA Cup in his first half season, with someone else’s team and fuck all since. We’re miles away from competing with Europe’s elite.

Beats me how Wilson can have had such a dramatic change of heart.

[IW8Goalmachine]

Get him out before we lose players

[Gunner Rob]

Time for him to go.

Thank you for all of the trophies ……oh
But please now just FUCK OFF

[BFG4]

There is something really dysfunctional about how our fanbase behaves towards the manager. The cultist nature under Wenger was never going to end with him, it instead has been moved on to a novice manager with one FA Cup to show for five years worth of effort. For me, a manager is supposed to be there to help the club achieve success but anyone whose loyalty goes to the manager before the betterment of the club, can fuck off

I laugh when I see the suggestion that it was somehow an error in judgement or a mistake by Arteta not to sign a striker, when it was the complete opposite. It was more important to stroke his ego by taking on Havertz than it was to sign a striker that could have elevated us to the next level. Soon enough Arteta will have passed the 1 billion spent mark and with zero to shown for it, and the same twats that glorified Wengers failures will do so with this clown.

[mcdowell42]

Long read ,taken from Le Grove blog.Pick the bones out of that

Jesus there's optimistic and there's optimistic but this is something else.












Being internet famous is hard to achieve when you have nothing particularly interesting to say - but if you are prepared to debase yourself and say anything to earn rage clicks, it can make you a few pennies. Mikel Arteta has been bad for a lot of people in the rage business. There hasn’t been a lot to cry about, we’re stable, we’ve been making good progress, that makes it hard to make a living if all you have is screaming in front of a camera (and to be clear, some made a very sharp pivot out of the banter era and do just fine).

So when Arsenal has a bad moment, it's not surprising these folk come flying out the gates with embarrassing attempts to make themselves relevant. I cannot imagine being so visibly high on a bad Arsenal result that I would tell the world I want to shoot an Arsenal captain. A guy who just brought a new baby into the world. A man who has given nothing but energy and love to our fanbase. Why should he have to hear someone on Arsenal's property say he'd kill a player if he had access to a weapon? These 'fans' are disgracing the global brand of Arsenal fandom for an extra few hundred pounds. They are so insecure, they think this represents football masculinity. It's Stone Island 'point to the badge' YouTubing, and it's so out of place with where we are as a club these days. The joke of the whole thing is the kids watching these videos are doing it because they pity the people in front of the camera, not because they think they're learning something important.

Today’s post will be a counter to thoughtless ranting. This won't be about condemning the club, the players, or the manager - it'll be framing where we are now through a more considered lens. You might not like it, but I promise you, this is how professionals at every major club will be looking at Arsenal right now.

Upgrade to paid

Load Management

Arsenal totally dominated Everton. It wasn't our best performance of the season, but 9 times out of 10, that sort of possession, against that sort of opposition would normally end up with the home team squeaking a win.

The players weren't as sharp as we needed them to be, the team looked out of ideas at times, and we were snatching at moments instead of moving through the process you need to when breaking down sides like Everton.

They didn't come to play; they dropped a dirty deep block, and they executed it to perfection. Arsenal should have been better in key moments, but 3 games in a week seemed to take its toll on the boys.

Now, you could look at Arteta in that scenario: How hard is he training the boys? Right now, they should be doing next to nothing, they're fit enough, and they're tactically educated not to need to rehearse everything at Colney. Arteta has lost players to training ground injuries (Merino, MLS, Partey in one session 2 weeks ago). We know Arteta is a psycho when it comes to intensity in his sessions, so one needs to ask the question of whether he's drilling players too hard.

You can also spare the boys some empathy. Arsenal have dealt with a lot of injuries this season. Injuries mean you can't rotate. When you can't rotate, you put more load on fewer players, this means leggier players. Again, you can point to Arteta and ask 'MLS seems very much at the level, was he not at this level 7 weeks ago?'... 'Sterling seems like a good player, is he so bad he can't do better than Martinelli or Trossard?'... these are all things we have to consider.

Mental Load

Then we get into some more of the nitty-gritty. December is really f*cking hard when you're a Champions League club. The games come thick and fast. You're in hotels a lot. You're on planes, buses, trains, life is happening, wear and tear is ripping into your body, there are teams you don't like playing.

The way YOU feel after your 7th client Christmas party is how players feel. Now imagine you are playing Everton, they've had 10 days rest, their players have been given days off (no other teams are getting that), and they've spent an entire week focused on one approach... litter the box with bodies and clog up the Arsenal attack.

Fresh players vs. dead players.

We have a tendency not to look to our Euro counterparts when we have off results... but here's how some of the Champions League teams performed this weekend.

Vallecano 3-3 Real Madrid

Juve 2-2 Venezia

Mainz 2-1 Bayern

Heerenveen 1-0 PSV

Liverpool 2-2 Fulham

Arsenal 0-0 Everton

Lille 1-1 Marseille

Reims 0-0 Monaco

Mallorca 2-1 Girona

Dortmund 1-1 Hoffenheim

City 2-1 United

Milan 0-0 Genoa

Big teams, big players, underperforming in lesser leagues after heavy Champions League nights. Speak to any of your High Performance Director friends, or anyone who works in sport at literally any level and ask how hard it is to perform three times a week. Then, ask them how tough it would be to play a team that had 10 days of rest. They'll all tell you the same… extra days off make a huge difference.

'WE HAVE TO FIND A WAY'

I agree with you. But that demand isn't a strategy or a good halftime talk to dead players. Football rolls in waves, you can be Chelsea, in a magical moment, and Cucurella can score a diving header against beastly Brentford centre backs… or you can be Manchester City, who go from being perfection for 5 years, to conceding two goals within 115 seconds to a dirt-poor United side to lose ANOTHER game.

X Factor Baby

The biggest miss in this current Arsenal side is the X Factor. We only have one player who can do Thierry/Bergkamp/Pires things. When the chips are down, we're short of inspiration. Arsenal didn't do what was needed in the summer and it's costing us in this particular moment. You might find yourself in a slightly forgiving mood, because Arsenal scored 91 goals last season. That's hard, when you know the missing ingredient in the BIG moments last season was a Leroy Sane who could take the game by the scruff and move to another level regardless of team performance.

There are factors that impact finding that sort of signing… Mikel Arteta, whether you like it or not, will not break his system to sign a player that is pure chaos. He believes in controlling spaces, dominating teams physically, and he will not allow anyone to opt out of that mindset. Alexis Sanchez didn't make it under Pep and he wouldn't get a space at Arsenal. I suspect there are similar issues with Alex Isak, great player, but he can't do the bits of the job Arteta values. It feels like we're getting to the point where the profile is so, so narrow, we're killing ourselves this season. Are you telling me £35m for Ivan Toney, a player so good he occupied Gabriel and Saliba, wasn't better than Gabi Jesus? Or are you telling me Arsenal couldn't move on a player like Toney because Gabi Jesus couldn't be shifted? Whatever it is, understand this, Arsenal know what we're missing and we'll get those players next summer.

... but the season isn't over.

I know, mad right? We're still in the mixer. Our feelings have been far more shaped by the misery of those three objectively shocking red cards earlier in the season than by our issues in front of goal. We lost 7 points because of reds that no other team will get this season. If those don't happen, we're right in the mixer with Liverpool and no YouTuber would dare call for the head of the manager.

Instead, we're in a situation where the margin of error is basically zero and certain folk have lost all perspective of why we are where we are... and they're even forgetting what has happened.

Arsenal, in their last 7 games, have scored 19 goals, and we've conceded 4. Liverpool have scored 13 and conceded 6 in their last 7. We've had two draws in the last two games that should have been wins, we outperformed both teams, the games didn't fall our way... but only one set of fans has lunatics begging for change.

The headloss is mad.

5 years ago we were meandering under a manager and a footballing structure that was taking us nowhere - even at his best, Unai Emery was never going to be capable of turning Arsenal into a modern super team capable of competing for the biggest trophies consistently.

The last two seasons under Arteta, we've accrued record points, record goals, fans are connected to the club. We have tied down all our best players to new deals. Our ownership group actually spends money now. We are the best team in England this season and we're doing that with the 5th highest wage bill in England. The team we've been pipped by the last two seasons has 115 charges against them because allegedly, they've not been doing things by the book.

If you think the problem here is the manager, I honestly don't know what to tell you, because you are deeply unserious.

Football, when you play by the rules, is about consistently doing things the right way. Creating an identity, recruiting for that identity, leveling up the basement, building extra floors at the top, evolving the thinking, and nurturing the culture. City have been at this for 15 years, Pep, the best coach in the world, has been working with unlimited funds for 8 years. Liverpool has had a serious setup for a very long time, Klopp built a machine, and when he left, the machine didn't follow. Arsenal don't have VVD in defence, a guy with 3 CL finals under his belt, multiple Premier League runs in him. We don't have a Mo Salah in the side, a man at his absolute peak, having been there and done it all before.

Arsenal has a young group of players trying to figure things out. The young players are excellent. Some of the best in the world. Is there enough of them? Maybe not. But we’re awfully close to where we need to be. The only team in the Premier League right now capable of a Man City like run, in my opinion, is Arsenal.

BEST CHANCE IS NOW

The naysayers said we were finished after Conte beat us to top 4.

'we'll never have a better chance'

How did that work out? Did those guys see us coming the year after when we went on that amazing run?

They didn't. Same folk said that season was our best chance at the league.

'Never gonna be able to do it with Champions League football'

Wrong again. We were even better last season. There was no Newcastle-like dip. We took the league to within 2 points against literal perfection.

Whatever your personal feelings are about the manager, know this, within the game, he is a top 5 coach in the world. If he was available, Barcelona, Man City, and PSG would throw £20m a year at him. Madrid would move on him if he wasn't Basque. Everyone wants an Arteta, look at what United are hoping to activate with Amorim. They’re taking a chance on him because they want to replicate what we have with Mikel.

The people who want to consider a new manager because 'Arteta makes mistakes' don't have good ideas on why they'd break a finally tuned machine that is the way it is because it is wrapped around one man.

I've read people say this is the attitude I hated when it came to Wenger.

Wrong.

My ire with Wenger is we could all see the decline. We had a manager who didn't believe in modern data, had no curiosity as to why his players were always injured, allowed us to get destroyed away from home, had no ideas for Champions League, was intent on owning every single decision top to bottom. Worst of all, there was no evidence of progress. He was happy to stagnate as long as the money was good and the fans were obedient.

Arteta is not stagnating. His ideas aren't failing. Arsenal aren't falling behind. We are on the cusp of something very special and sadly, there are too many people blind to this because they can't handle a non-perfect season and they don't understand the process that goes behind getting to the top in elite-level sport.

But they will. They'll come crawling back to the joy when it lands. You just have to take names, numbers, and coordinates and remind them full force about their headloss when we had bumps in the road. I am looking forward to the 'no one likes I told you so' comments that'll no doubt follow when these people want to get back on the party bus. The beauty of being wrong about success is no one will call you on your bullshit when things are going great because it seems petty. That won’t be me.



Ok, that's me done. Enjoy your day. Plenty of season to go. Don't let folk who have never made a decision of consequence in their lives tell you how to feel about the team you support.


Pick that bones out of that