Country: Wales
Liverpool work quite well as a benchmark for judging the process as their squad was also a mess with loads of players that just weren't good enough and had to be moved on.
Obviously Klopp is the benchmark and trying to match him is like like trying to match the first season of Prison Break but still we could have been closer.Pilot: Mikel actually matches (or betters) Klopp in terms of their first half season. Mikel won the FA Cup while Klopp reached and lost the EL and EFL cup finals.
Season 1: Klopp spends 71M Arteta spends 77M
Klopp's first full season they qualified for the CL with 76 points. Arteta spent 77M and we know how that ended. Obviously one guy is world class and the other was a novice so you kind of ignore the difference in outcome. Should mention that Liverpool had no European football which played a big part in them getting to fourth.
Season 2: Klopp spends 156M Arteta spends 150M.
We're now two full seasons and 220M in. Klopp reaches the CL final in their debut season but doesn't actually improve in the league, still maintains 4th though with 75 points. We finish 5th with 69 points and no European competition or deep cup runs.
Season 3: Klopp spends 164M Arteta spends 119M (and counting).
I'm gonna assume that we sign another player or two. That takes both managers to three years in and about 400M spent. Klopp S3 was a thing of beauty, game of thrones levels, 97 points in the league and a CL win.
400M spent and three full seasons is a lot by anyone's standards now. If Klopp S3 ended with 97 points and a CL final then expecting ~80 points and maybe a cup final for Arteta S3 is completely fair for an Arsenal manager. The rookie excuses don't really cut it, at some point you have to sink or swim.
The only thing in favour of Arteta I’d say is that I feel like there’s been inflation in transfer fees since even 2015 when Klopp took over. Also I’d say that the spending has been offset for them by selling well.
Now this could be Arteta’s fault but we’ve struggled to make big sales for decades.
This is our record departures and Ox is still first. You can also bump everyone else below Alexis off that list because his “sale” was a 30M accounting trick which we simultaneously spent on Mkhi.
I mean Nicolas Anelka is still our second biggest sale and that’s from the last millennium ffs.
Meanwhile all of Liverpool’s bar Alonso have been since 2010 and their biggest probably covers our entire top 10.
Don’t think it’s such a huge issue now with the top 6 revenues but it definitely was.