Mikel Arteta: Artist, Manager, Legend 💡

[SA Gunner]

I see the Burnley thread is gone thus posting it here, thought this was interesting.

Apologies if posted before.

 

[A_G]

I’ve gone for improvement in performances. We learnt from Emery that scraping into Europe with poor performances is just prolonging the inevitable. I’m gonna assume that the improvement in performances get us into Europe unless we are very unlucky.

My ideal answer would be Europe + good performances but @American_Gooner is awful at creating polls.

You with my poll:

 

[dka1]

What is your honest assessment of Arteta?

Is he an exceptional talented Coach/manager who will take the game in a new direction?

Is he an above average talent with tactical acumen?

Is he a defensive coach who prioritize stopping the opponent rather than scoring?

Is he a attacking coach? (🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣)

Is he of the possession school and wants to just control the game?

Does he develop talent? Is he mediocrity defined?

Is he just a face and voice to appease the fans?

The truth is probably somewhere in between all these things.

What I will say is that I observe based on his body of work. He’s so far shown to be a very average manager. His record is not exceptionally positive. He has his strengths (defensive set up where he stifled the play and tries to control possession). His weaknesses are obvious (lacks attacking nous, penetration, no plan B or C). There are questions about his man management and psychological side of the game.

How I look at it is this way, let us say Arteta was at Newcastle or Aston Villa, would he get them playing better than they are? Would we appreciate the job he’s doing there? Also if he was in charge of Chelsea or Man City, would we be hailing him or laughing at those teams?

Much of this will be nuanced but what is your actual opinion of his ability and not his potential?

Yes exactly.

Obviously I do go overboard sometimes with my criticism of Arteta and it's not like he's sh!t at everything.

But overall as Kevin Samuels would say.....average at best.

It's hard to be really optimistic about the future when I don't even know if he could really get above 6th....maybe 5th as a push...

 

[Trilly]

What is your honest assessment of Arteta?

Is he an exceptional talented Coach/manager who will take the game in a new direction?

Is he an above average talent with tactical acumen?

Is he a defensive coach who prioritize stopping the opponent rather than scoring?

Is he a attacking coach? (🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣)

Is he of the possession school and wants to just control the game?

Does he develop talent? Is he mediocrity defined?

Is he just a face and voice to appease the fans?

The truth is probably somewhere in between all these things.

What I will say is that I observe based on his body of work. He’s so far shown to be a very average manager. His record is not exceptionally positive. He has his strengths (defensive set up where he stifled the play and tries to control possession). His weaknesses are obvious (lacks attacking nous, penetration, no plan B or C). There are questions about his man management and psychological side of the game.

How I look at it is this way, let us say Arteta was at Newcastle or Aston Villa, would he get them playing better than they are? Would we appreciate the job he’s doing there? Also if he was in charge of Chelsea or Man City, would we be hailing him or laughing at those teams?
Much of this will be nuanced but what is your actual opinion of his ability and not his potential?

I think from what he’s shown so far it’s too soon to tell what type of coach he will but what is clear is that this job was way too big for him.

All the signs and stats point to him not being good enough but there is a small chance that he’s a unadaptable Pep-lite type coach who needs a specific set of players to enable his style. As much as I’ve hated Arteta at times, players like last season’s Bellerin, Holding and Elneny are just not good enough especially for the type of football Arteta was trying to play.

Now he has his team the next four league games are crucial, nine points is the absolute minimum for him to prove he’s not a fraud.

 

[TornadoTed]

I've gone for improvement in performances.

I expect inconsistency and naivety, the squad is young (2nd youngest in the Premiership I believe) and our manager is a rookie, I do not expect turgid, awful football. If we finish 7th-10th but are playing cohesive football, creating plenty of good chances per game and genuinely look like we are improving and growing month by month I will happily give him more time.

Unfortunately though I gave up hope of Mikel giving us even the tiniest glimpse of attractive football a long time ago.

 

[Trilly]

I see the Burnley thread is gone thus posting it here, thought it was interesting.

Apologies if posted before.

Interesting.

We should really have Pepe and ESR switching roles when we do the 3-2-5 in attack. As @The_Playmaker has mentioned we seem to get Auba and Pepe creating shots for Saka and ESR when it should be the other way around.

We need ESR making that overlapping run that a traditional RB would make, allowing Pepe to cut in. Instead he just kind of jogs over to the area with no real plan.

 

[Garrincha]

feel the contract renewal is the main background issue here now the 20 months left on his deal has passed

its not as simple as just not being sacked but has to really get in a position where a renewal is acceptable

 

[Makingtrax]

Inexcusable that Tets had a lower xG than Burnley, they had more penetration and got into better quality positions. We still lack penetration into the oppositions box. Our players are too deep. Very lucky with Westwood’s crazy foul in an excellent position for Ødegaard. Better teams won’t give us chances like that.

 

[AbouCuéllar]

Oh for goodness sakes, even Ian Wright said it in a recent interview. Anything above 8th is improvement.

Right, so we've still not identified even one poster on A-M who has said this. Unless Ian Wright has an account that I don't know of, and you guys are targeting him with these posts.

 

[Trilly]

feel the contract renewal is the main background issue here now the 20 months left on his deal has passed

its not as simple as just not being sacked but has to really get in a position where a renewal is acceptable

Was thinking about this the other day, we might end up with him actually seeing out his contract.

If he isn't good enough to renew then why have you let him stay? Will be a tricky one for Edu to answer.

 

[Blood on the Tracks]

No point reading too much into the Burnley match in my opinion. They're just an awkward team to play. We're not going to spank them off the park at their places, it's never happened.

Previous corresponding PL fixtures between us bare this out.

20-21 Burnley 1 - Arsenal 1
19-20 Burnley 0 - Arsenal 0
18-19 Burnley 1 - Arsenal 3
17-18 Burnley 0 - Arsenal 1
16-17 Burnley 0 - Arsenal 1
14-15 Burnley 0 - Arsenal 1
09-10 Burnley 1- Arsenal 1

 

[Artisan]

Going to listen to this later, but leaving it here for anyone who's interested.

The only thing worth of note in that interview was that the expectation for Arteta now is to get us into CL in 2-3 years...

 

[AbouCuéllar]

The only thing worth of note in that interview was that the expectation for Arteta now is to get us into CL in 2-3 years...

I thought it was quite interesting, tbh...some interesting insight on how things were during the Wenger era with these two (him and Arteta) in the dressing room, interesting to see thoughts from inside the club about certain things, about his meetings with Edu and what they talk about, his opinions on Arteta and Edu (interesting too his how without saying it explicitly you get the feeling he didn't have the greatest opinion of Em*ry and that regime, with the way he talks about those times versus now...).

Very long, some rather boring parts, and I couldn't imagine listening to it in any situation other than I did yesterday (while watching a match), but there's definitely some interesting stuff in there, IMO.

 

[AberGooner]

Expected us to finish in the top 6 pre-season with no Europe but that shouldn't be enough for him to keep his job anyway. That should have been the minimum for his first couple of seasons not 3 years into it.

Top 4 would be the only thing that would make me think he deserves to keep it and obviously I don't see any chance of that happening. We've watched the same story enough to see that nothings improving, why prolong it? Not up to me though, those in charge can do what they want.

 

[Makingtrax]

No point reading too much into the Burnley match in my opinion. They're just an awkward team to play. We're not going to spank them off the park at their places, it's never happened.

Previous corresponding PL fixtures between us bare this out.

20-21 Burnley 1 - Arsenal 1
19-20 Burnley 0 - Arsenal 0
18-19 Burnley 1 - Arsenal 3
17-18 Burnley 0 - Arsenal 1
16-17 Burnley 0 - Arsenal 1
14-15 Burnley 0 - Arsenal 1
09-10 Burnley 1- Arsenal 1

Ha ha! You think it’s just Burnley, we’ve scored two goals in 5 matches. That pattern of not being able to score was bad last season and hasn’t improved one iota. You need to see the big picture

A-M is like The Athletic, there’s always an excuse waiting to be posted.

 

[LG10]

I agree that 4th shouldn't be the benchmark, but top 6 isn't necessarily a good season either. That's just finishing where our squad should finish. We're on a similar level to Sp**s and Leicester, and there is no excuse for finishing below a team like West Ham again. Anything below 6th is a failure.

A good season is finishing 5th or 6th AND considerably improving our performances, showing clear signs that we're bridging the gap between us and the top 4. If we get there scraping unconvincing 1-0s and draws against teams we should be beating, he should be out even if we get 6th. He won't, but he should.

So basically we agree

 

[Blood on the Tracks]

Ha ha! You think it’s just Burnley, we’ve scored two goals in 5 matches. That pattern of not being able to score was bad last season and hasn’t improved one iota. You need to see the big picture

A-M is like The Athletic, there’s always an excuse waiting to be posted.

I'm well aware of that. I've said that Arteta's performance the past year or so has not been acceptable and he should have been sacked already.

Still, making a statement of fact that we've always had issues away at Burnley isn't making an excuse for Arteta. Burnley away shouldn't be swinging anyone's opinion though.

Away to Burnley you take the 3 points however you can get them. The result and performance doesn't make me think better of Arteta or worse.

 

[El Duderino]

Top six scrapping wins shouldn't keep him his job, even though it's a results game.

We need to see this squad go up a level, there's been enough investment on it.

 

[GoonerJay24]

I think from what he’s shown so far it’s too soon to tell what type of coach he will but what is clear is that this job was way too big for him.

All the signs and stats point to him not being good enough but there is a small chance that he’s a unadaptable Pep-lite type coach who needs a specific set of players to enable his style. As much as I’ve hated Arteta at times, players like last season’s Bellerin, Holding and Elneny are just not good enough especially for the type of football Arteta was trying to play.

Now he has his team the next four league games are crucial, nine points is the absolute minimum for him to prove he’s not a fraud.

Elneny barely started last season, and when he did Arsenal won some big matches.

Also Holding formed a good partnership with Mari towards the closing months of last season.

 

[IstraBalagina]

Elneny barely started last season, and when he did Arsenal won some big matches.

Also Holding formed a good partnership with Mari towards the closing months of last season.

Then why they're not playing ?