Mikel Arteta: Aston La Vista To The Title?

[Iceman10]

It's not a team capable of winning the league just because you say so. And weren't you spitting feathers at the start of that year because Arsène didn't spend money upgrading that squad. And wasn't half the forum calling the centre forward a donkey.

It just suits your narrative to say it was a team capable of winning the league because Arsène upset all his detractors when he came 2nd, so that's all they had left to whack him over the head with, never mind all his injuries, particularly losing his best player in November.

The main problem under Arsène Wenger is some seasons early on our first team looked good and people were very optimistic looking at that first XI only. Once players started getting injuries or we had to handle midweek matches in CL also there was never the squad depth to sustain it all through a long grueling season. I think it has all come to light recently also that that horrific injury to Eduardo and what followed in that match left scars on the club psychologically.

 

[Iceman10]

@Blood on the Tracks, can you see the animosity I’ve had above with passive aggressive disliking of comments simply for pointing out our squad has been Top 6 not Top 4, probably during Wenger’s last year as well as seasons after? This point even acknowledges Mikel’s underachievement so far this season, but if I’m getting grief for stating something at least 85% of Arsenal fans agree with, that shows the mess this thread is in general with some totally off the reservation. It also shows I think that participation is skewed unrepresentatively towards a few pitchfork activists acting more in pack mode, not even representative of the recent poll at the top. Just nuts. If even simple straightforward basics cannot be accepted because they do not suit a narrative it is hard for some sanity to prevail in here.

 

[Blood on the Tracks]

By the way, to some extent, I would say Unai Emery arguably overachieved for most of his first season until the collapse at the end. I still do think he was a better manager than some gave him credit for, but that Summer 2019 transfer window screwed him up due to the money spend that raised expectations, but spend on players who were not who he wanted, or ready-made, with bad luck with Tierney injuries also, although on top of all of that various things led to Unai losing the dressing room.

I can't say I was Emery's biggest fan, but I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of him overachieving during his first season.

- We accrued 12 points from our top 6 rivals that season giving us a superior record to Chelsea, Manchester United or Tottenham.

That's twice as many points as Arsène achieved in his last season, and more than we'd achieved in any of the 3 seasons previous to that.

- We gained more points from home games against the top six than in any of their previous 10 seasons.

A slightly better end to the season in the league or beating Chelsea in the Europa and maybe things would have worked out very different for Unai with CL football.

In hindsight I think Emery's first season was fairly successful overall.

 

[Tir Na Nog]

Our players got injured more often because oppositions players were allowed to and encouraged to kick our players without sufficient punishment. Also the media tried to nail home the soft Arsenal image and made it out that it was the right thing to do to leave one on our players while going for tackles and referees were always reluctant to start punishing opposition players for the nasty and reckless tackling. Reminder Dan Smith wasn't even sent off for the horrific tackle which ruined Diaby's career. The media even went out to defend Shawcross after his horrific tackle on Ramsey and backed Pulis saying he wasn't that type and it was an accident and it was revealed by Dave Kitson that Pulis used to really encourage his players to be as nasty and as physical as possible against Arsenal to the extent that such an injury was bound to happen because of how riled up he'd get the players.

It's all part of the backward thinking in opposition to the fact that Wenger brought with him a new way and was winning things his way with a largely foreign coach with teams filled with foreign players not playing the typical British way. The media, pundits, referees and a lot of managers resented him. Referees like Riley got away with blatant bias to the extent that would've seen corruption charges in any competent league but was just swept under the carpet.

 

[Blood on the Tracks]

@Blood on the Tracks, can you see the animosity I’ve had above with passive aggressive disliking of comments simply for pointing out our squad has been Top 6 not Top 4, probably during Wenger’s last year as well as seasons after? This point even acknowledges Mikel’s underachievement so far this season, but if I’m getting grief for stating something at least 85% of Arsenal fans agree with, that shows the mess this thread is in general with some totally off the reservation. It also shows I think that participation is skewed unrepresentatively towards a few pitchfork activists acting more in pack mode, not even representative of the recent poll at the top. Just nuts. If even simple straightforward basics cannot be accepted because they do not suit a narrative it is hard for some sanity to prevail in here.

I wouldn't take it to heart mate. I've enjoyed reading the debate between yourself and Blaze. It's some high quality posting. Much better than the stupid debates I get myself into on this thread

I guess you could make a case for the squad being top 4 standard, though I don't agree with it myself. Particularly with Auba having his off field issues and Partey missing the majority of the season.

For me, it's probably 6th as par.

I would jump in and add something but I basically agree with everything you've said, so it would be a bit pointless

 

[Riou]

Our players got injured more often because oppositions players were allowed to and encouraged to kick our players without sufficient punishment. Also the media tried to nail home the soft Arsenal image and made it out that it was the right thing to do to leave one on our players while going for tackles and referees were always reluctant to start punishing opposition players for the nasty and reckless tackling. Reminder Dan Smith wasn't even sent off for the horrific tackle which ruined Diaby's career. The media even went out to defend Shawcross after his horrific tackle on Ramsey and backed Pulis saying he wasn't that type and it was an accident and it was revealed by Dave Kitson that Pulis used to really encourage his players to be as nasty and as physical as possible against Arsenal to the extent that such an injury was bound to happen because of how riled up he'd get the players.

It's all part of the backward thinking in opposition to the fact that Wenger brought with him a new way and was winning things his way with a largely foreign coach with teams filled with foreign players not playing the typical British way. The media, pundits, referees and a lot of managers resented him. Referees like Riley got away with blatant bias to the extent that would've seen corruption charges in any competent league but was just swept under the carpet.

The commentary is the worst part of that Diaby match.

We had a European cup final not long after that, Abou gets horribly hacked down by that gimp...think Bergkamp and Toure go over to have a go at Smith, "There is abolsutely no need for them to get involved" ...whoever was on comms.

Yeah we are the bad guys here...how dare we complain about one of our players getting smashed into, a few weeks before the biggest games in our history

Disgrace the way we were treated...even when we were at our peak under Arsène (1997-2005) it was mental, like teams played with different rules against us...the FA hate every time we win, boils their piss that Arsenal/Arsène owns the FA cup

 

[Iceman10]

I can't say I was Emery's biggest fan, but I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of him overachieving during his first season.

- We accrued 12 points from our top 6 rivals that season giving us a superior record to Chelsea, Manchester United or Tottenham.

That's twice as many points as Arsène achieved in his last season, and more than we'd achieved in any of the 3 seasons previous to that.

- We gained more points from home games against the top six than in any of their previous 10 seasons.

A slightly better end to the season in the league or beating Chelsea in the Europa and maybe things would have worked out very different for Unai with CL football.

In hindsight I think Emery's first season was fairly successful overall.

Some of the deadly counterattacking stuff he had going in that first season was a pleasure to watch. He definitely had players playing to a system he was introducing, so the players were mostly behind him and understood what he wanted for most of that season. After that it is really a complex mixture of things that led to a mess in the end.

 

[say yes]

I'm sorry, but I just don't see what point you are trying to make. If a team comes 5th by one point and drops as many as we did in that run-in, it is good enough for fourth. The following season was largely the same team, and Emery was fired for having them mid-table around xmas. I don't agree the players are/were as bad as you say, they were underperforming under Emery and under Arteta up until recently.

And I'm not saying we should cruise into top four, but the squad has been good enough to fight for it.

This "good enough" argument seems completely pointless?

Any squad in this league is "good enough" to do anything, as Leicester showed. The entire point of this sport is that anyone can beat anyone. There is no limit on what this squad could achieve, and there is no floor for how far it could fall. What you have is a range of likely outcomes, nothing more.

 

[Riou]

@say yes

If we win our next 2 games, Arteta will be above the Champions

 

[Iceman10]

I wouldn't take it to heart mate. I've enjoyed reading the debate between yourself and Blaze. It's some high quality posting. Much better than the stupid debates I get myself into on this thread

I guess you could make a case for the squad being top 4 standard, though I don't agree with it myself. Particularly with Auba having his off field issues and Partey missing the majority of the season.

For me, it's probably 6th as par.

I would jump in and add something but I basically agree with everything you've said, so it would be a bit pointless

No worries, and it isn’t really about my feelings. It is kind of showing what I consider firm proof (almost Q.E.D) of emotions in his thread getting in the way of simple agreement of some basics, regardless of whether one is pro/anti Arteta. I know many people who are anti-Arteta who are on record saying this squad has been weak, definitely not Top 4. It shouldn’t be difficult to be consistent with that while also criticising Arteta with other arguments.

My comment wasn’t aimed at @blaze_of_glory either in terms of criticism, but as I said, if there was a poll of Arsenal fans I would wager 85% would say our squad has not been Top 4.

 

[2Smokeyy]

@say yes

If we win our next 2 games, Arteta will be above the Champions

If we kept it solid at the back for 14 more minutes, we would have won the CL in 2006.

 

[say yes]

@say yes

When we win our next 2 games, Arteta will be above the Champions

Fixed

 

[DJ_Markstar]

Said it a few months ago, but it’s nice to see @say yes @Jury etc get behind Arteta like this.

They both lost it when me and the rest of the Usual Suspects mentioned Arteta back in 2018 but we’re all on the same team now and that’s all that matters.

I wasn't immediately convinced by Arteta and this season hasn't been great but you can see he's made us more solid defensively and with the energetic AM trio of Saka/ESR/Ødegaard we can score against anyone and still keep a good defensive shape.

If there is any chance at all of signing Ødegaard we should take it. Potential worldie.

 

[Tir Na Nog]

This time last year we were miles off Liverpool, crazy how Arteta has closed the gap in just a year.

 

[say yes]

I'm not getting involved here, I've already debated that with Trax about 600 times.

When you reach the pearly gates of heaven and are asked how many times you sought to explain to MakingSweetSoulfulHouseTrax that losing the title to Leicester wasn't an achievement:

 

[Riou]

A fully fit Partey/ESR, Ødegaard for the full season and not always starting Willian.

IF we had these things from the start of the season, we would have gotten Top Four imo (only 1 of these being on Mikel) if he doesn't get Champions League by the end of next season, then questions can be asked.

Would say I back my boy to get us back in the Champions League next season, when he has HIS team...but I am backing him to get us in this season, Europa all the way

 

[CaseUteinberger]

Don't know if anyone listened to the BBC Football Daily podcast which was broadcasted in front of the NLD. The question posed to the guests Luke Edwards and Lianne Sanderson was who of Arteta and Mourinho had improved their teams the most and had the best season. Both were in full agreement that Mourinho had done better. Guess those views haven't aged well. Best are the bits about Mourinho being a serial winner and Arteta not having improved us defensively.

 

[AbouCuéllar]

I can't say I was Emery's biggest fan, but I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of him overachieving during his first season.

- We accrued 12 points from our top 6 rivals that season giving us a superior record to Chelsea, Manchester United or Tottenham.

That's twice as many points as Arsène achieved in his last season, and more than we'd achieved in any of the 3 seasons previous to that.

- We gained more points from home games against the top six than in any of their previous 10 seasons.

A slightly better end to the season in the league or beating Chelsea in the Europa and maybe things would have worked out very different for Unai with CL football.

In hindsight I think Emery's first season was fairly successful overall.

Results wise really outperformed performance wise. It was a fluke first half of the season results wise of 13/14 levels.

(First half we outperformed out xPts by 8.47 xPts-- xG had us at 29, not 38, after 19 games, and if you were watching our performances in the first half--underwhelming but achieving results--and saw us in the second half of the season where we regressed to the mean results wise--performances remained constant--then you know that 29 pts was about where we deserved to be)

In the end we finished on 70 pts, outperforming our xG by 11 pts, 2nd to only Liverpool (much smaller fraction of their 96 pts at 13.5).

Even in this disastrous season, we are on pace for 58 xPts atm, 1 less than Emery's first. Given our performance trend you can expect us to finish pretty well above Emery's xPts level / underlying performance level in his first season.

In short, Emery's 18/19 = major mirage, and needs context of us highly outperforming actual performances to really understand it. Never did Emery's Arsenal look like a successful or good project if you were paying attention to performances.

 

[AbouCuéllar]

Our players got injured more often because oppositions players were allowed to and encouraged to kick our players without sufficient punishment. Also the media tried to nail home the soft Arsenal image and made it out that it was the right thing to do to leave one on our players while going for tackles and referees were always reluctant to start punishing opposition players for the nasty and reckless tackling. Reminder Dan Smith wasn't even sent off for the horrific tackle which ruined Diaby's career. The media even went out to defend Shawcross after his horrific tackle on Ramsey and backed Pulis saying he wasn't that type and it was an accident and it was revealed by Dave Kitson that Pulis used to really encourage his players to be as nasty and as physical as possible against Arsenal to the extent that such an injury was bound to happen because of how riled up he'd get the players.

It's all part of the backward thinking in opposition to the fact that Wenger brought with him a new way and was winning things his way with a largely foreign coach with teams filled with foreign players not playing the typical British way. The media, pundits, referees and a lot of managers resented him. Referees like Riley got away with blatant bias to the extent that would've seen corruption charges in any competent league but was just swept under the carpet.

I agree there was something to this (especially in the 2000s, in the 2010s this was a bit less relevant as premier became increasingly more foreign) but the number of muscular injuries that happened year after year with Wenger and the extent to which we dominated the injury table over such a long span of time points inexorably to something endemic in the training / preparation methods during his regime, there's really no other logical explanation.

There's been a number of articles that have come out speaking about the major issues with players' preparation (especially re: injuries and injury prevention) under Wenger.

As a natural skeptic and massive supporter of Wenger during that time, I was hugely dubious whenever articles came out criticising the lack of modernity in Wenger and his staff's preparation and injury prevention methods, but as year after year went by atop the injury table, year by year went by with terrible injury crises and muscular injury issues, while clubs like Chelsea consistently finished toward the bottom while often rotating less, it really was impossible to deny. I think The Athletic later came out with a pretty definitive piece regarding the lack of professionalism and seriousness of Arsenal players in regards to preparation and injury prevention under Wenger, quoting actual club doctors and members of the staff, confirming what the data already inescapably was telling us. There could've been psychological factors in there (I think that article or others also suggested this), but regardless what the causes were, the fact is: endemic to Wenger's reign / management in the Emirates era --> abnormal level of injuries.

But yeah, **** England for what they did to Abou Diaby (one of the most beautiful footballers I've ever seen that never got to fulfill his potential). #NeverForgive

 

[blaze_of_glory]

The point I’m making is simple. Look at our squad, compare it with our competitors, and objectively say what is par for the course for that squad. I’m arguing with an outlier really here. You are in a very small amount of people who say Arsenal has had a Top 4 squad all these years post-Wenger. I don’t see how one can be objective if they are not looking at the competition, their personnel and buys.

Look at it another way. The way you are assessing here you would never credit Arsène Wenger for overachieving with a squad because you wouldn’t be taking into account the competition and what they were doing with building squads. You would just say the table position was what the squad was, not being above Chelsea or another club as per specific season. If you wouldn’t use that way of judgment for Arsène Wenger, why are you using it for the two managers after him?

There is par for the course, underachievement, and overachievement. Par for the course as most see it, including myself, right now, is Top 6 not Top 4. That still means Mikel has underachieved this season so far, that isn’t being disputed, only your “Top 4” stuff.

I guess I didn't get my point across well.. Or I'm not understanding what you are saying (I really don't get what you are trying to say re: Wenger overachieving).. I was trying to indicate that the squad has been good enough for top four during the last Wenger years and after. I'm saying all these managers (Wenger included) underachieved insofar as league position since dropping out of the CL. I think we have been on par with Chelsea and Sp**s, Man Utd quite easily, our matches against them would indicate that as well.

I think our league position in Emery's first season (where top four was literally thrown away at the end), combined with an EL final and an FA Cup is pretty compelling evidence the squad is better than its league finishes the past few years.