Mikel Arteta: Aston La Vista To The Title?

[jones]

Just jumping in on that part here, because I've never had any Arteta-Neutral or Arteta-Positive come in with counter-arguments to any of my posts below, so I'd be curious if you think there's nothing about these that makes you go, "huh, maybe Arteta isn't the guy".



A lot of his own quotes are in this overview, and they go in many directions, and points fingers in even more.
And to add to that, this doesn't even include some of the other dodgy decisions he's made as there's only so much space.




When we lost to an injury-ridden Newcastle team with a horrible performance while only missing a few starters. That was something we've seen several times with Arteta. Lose some of the main players and we crumble. With just the 1 tournament since January as well we still somehow looked depleted of energy at the end. The lack of rotation we saw at large during the season is Arteta's responsibility, and likewise the decision to banish/loan/release so many players in January with no cover was also with his green-light.




There's the whole "culture" topic that's been resurfacing lately.
Arteta has definitely played a part in that illusion being created.
In reality, we have released and frozen out any player who strayed from Arteta's ideology, and yet, now what 2½-3years into his tenure we have both fixed the culture as well as realized we need to bring in consultants and work on "The Arsenal Way". The way we have handled (or not handled) disputes in the squad has at times been a farce. The Auba situation that you discussed before as well being a pretty clear one, where a player, captain and all, was publicly ostracised and subsequently had his value completely tanked to the point you'd think he was a 40yo striker who could barely move anymore. Paid him off to leave and then he performs well straight away at his next destination.

That has to be something that you judge Arteta's character and manager ability on.
Part of his job is literally to manage the squad. And using the media against certain players to build agendas, and paying off "trouble-makers" is not usually something people would call good managing.




This one is long, and only some of the parts in there are actually relevant to this post. Some of them are just either jokes or whatever, bu some of them are quite interesting again as they show stats, Arteta's comments after performances and how again he wanted to make it clear that Pepe was the reason we lost a game where Pepe got red-carded. When the same happened with Xhaka getting a red card it was a very different tune from Arteta.


Then there could be made further arguments and talk on many other points around how he handles things at the club, and how despite a full squad having changed the team to a vast extent, just look at the team when Arteta arrived, and the team almost 2 years after

Spoiler

And yet there are still people who have repeatedly excused him for not having his own players and that we need to give him more time to implement his playing style.

The excuse of young players comes up too, but when he arrived he tried to get experienced players in, and that blew up in his face at large, so a sudden change to youth was made, and that has not exactly been a clear success either.

I don't really mean to get too involved in this again, because it's a topic where little will change each's opinion, but curious if you still don't find anything thought provoking looking this through, even if you only glance at it.

You deserve some medal or something for typing all that out.

I got caught up in it and posted half a novel the other day in response to a genuine question how Arteta's been underperforming. Literally no point to it when any and all arguments are ignored and the nonsense unfolding before our eyes for over two years is misconstrued or distorted to the point that there's something which clearly isn't there.

Not going to lie I try to question myself on my own views but I've watched too much football over the years - especially outside of Arsenal where clubs with a lot less do a lot more - to try to twist myself into seeing anything worthwhile with Arteta, and that's ignoring his odious character.

 

[Trilly]

the guy loses a third of Premier League games ffs... just cant get passed that

whenever i try to be more positive & feel good about signings it always hits me

its not a back weighted stat either as he lost more than a third last season

Think the key next season is to keep it simple. Losing a third of our games is unacceptable no matter how you spin it.

Eye test + wins/losses + basic stats.

When I say basic stats I’m talking goals for/against, big chances created and big chances conceded. That’s it really.

We managed to get a respectable xG score last season by racking up lots of half chances that weren’t really going to trouble anybody and it lead to us being something like top 4 for xG but bottom 3 for big chances. Might be accused of having an agenda for neglecting our xG but the table proved that the big chances stat carried more weight than xG.

 

[jones]

Until those decisions have a massive detrimental effect on the output of the team over a period of time, why should they matter now? Pep has fallen out with multiple players throughout his career, and as ****ty as that has been, has it hardly mattered. Why? Because such "feelings" dont matter to the decision makers, and it seems they are seeing actual delivery on the pitch.

Are you talking about decision makers or fans? Why compare to Pep who keeps winning regardless of how many players he's falling out with when Arteta ain't winning ****? Why should I be forced to ignore if the manager of the club I support acts like a complete dickhead?
Mate no offence but this is full on waffle.

 

[Trilly]

Are you talking about decision makers or fans? Why compare to Pep who keeps winning regardless of how many players he's falling out with when Arteta ain't winning ****? Why should I be forced to ignore if the manager of the club I support acts like a complete dickhead?
Mate no offence but this is full on waffle.

I think he’s saying that you can be a dickhead if you’re winning so give him a chance and let’s see if he’ll get the wins.

 

[SA Gunner]

Are you talking about decision makers or fans? Why compare to Pep who keeps winning regardless of how many players he's falling out with when Arteta ain't winning ****? Why should I be forced to ignore if the manager of the club I support acts like a complete dickhead?
Mate no offence but this is full on waffle.

No offense taken my man, state your case.

Im speaking about the decision makers, because ultimately they have done the actual work, evaluating the manager and will decide on his fate.

The point is exactly that... Pep is allowed to be an absolute dickhead to players because he spends unlimited amounts and consistently wins trophies. Compare that to Arteta, who doesnt have similar levels of success. As a result... massive expenditure and falling out with players is not something that should be tolerated. He is simply a fraud, who needs to be sacked immediately, because he is clueless, wasting money and will never get it right.

Again, if you have technical reasons why Arteta sucks balls, and where the club should be seriously looking, by all means... lets hear it. But feelings and vibes are not high on my Arteta evaluation checklist right now.

 

[2Smokeyy]

All I really do on here is rehash/remix old Arteta takes.

I just come here to fight.

This thread is dusted when we aren’t playing games.

All I see is this whenever I open this thread:

 

[Blood on the Tracks]

One of the common reasons given by Arteta fans for the Arteta > Ole argument is that Ole had a much more expensive squad with better players. Another common (and new) argument is that we didn’t bottle 4th, we just don’t have players like Kane and Son.

If we properly unpack this it means that Arteta defenders are well aware of the correlation between squad cost, player quality and league finish.

So now If I turn around next season and say Arteta has only gotten top four by spending on better players why is that petty or agenda driven? I’m actually using the exact same foundation for my argument as those two takes.

I can also back it up too:
I can point to Ole and Lampard being carried into the top four by squad cost. I could point at years of data showing a very strong correlation between league performance and squad cost irrespective of manager. I could point to Arteta’s terrible performances (even relative to the level of our squad) before he started spending.

The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. The simplest explanation for our progress is that it’s not Mikel but our spend. We have years of data to back that up. The problem is that his supporters want people to believe in a less likely explanation, to believe in the small chance that a rookie manager just happens to be one of the best in the world and that our progress coinciding with unprecedented spending is just a coincidence.

Calling it petty/agenda driven to credit the signings and not him is a lazy argument.

Lastly, he deserves some measure of praise for said signings but that’s just one part of his job, a part he happens to share with Edu. When I look at the stuff he’s exclusively responsible for, I’m far from impressed.

Good points!

To me it's clear as day Arteta is a better manager than Ole, I'd have him at least a level above in game management, tactics etc. Ole to me seemed to me to be almost totally reliant on moments of magic from his players and the goodwill garnered from his playing status at the club. I'm not saying that makes Arteta great or even good, that's just how poorly I rate Ole as a manager.

But I don't see how it can be argued we didn't bottle 4th. I've been pushing back against this idea that Conte worked some kind of miracle getting Sp**s 4th. Credit to him he's a good manager but he got a couple more points than Arteta did since he took over at Sp**s. Largely due to us collapsing at the last hurdle due to managerial errors and injuries ( exacerbated by a bare bones squad, which I lay majorly on Arteta)
Kane is a great player, Son is decent. It's a team game though.

I'm not a squad cost guy but I do agree there's generally a correlation between the cost of your squad / spending and where you finish, seems logical to me. If you finish more than a place either side of your squad cost, you've done well or poorly. You do have anomalies like Leicester winning the league or Man Utd this season though. So I don't think you can draw straight lines from it.

Particularly with us this season, I'd say Saka and ESR contributed as many points to us as anyone this season other than maybe Ramsdale and they don't exist by this squad cost stuff. It puts me off it. Too many intangibles.

If we're saying it's investment and squad cost that are close to being the bee all and end all though ( which I don't really buy) Arteta or any manager is actually an irrelevance. If we keep investing we'll just improve irrespective of whoevers at the helm. He's not a problem. In fact he's probably a net positive as he's at least played a part in getting the money guys to splash the cash, at least to this point.

The logic to me seems to be, if we finish where we should or above that will be down to the quality of the players and the investment. not the manager. But if we finish lower than we're expected to I don't think the blame will be going on underperforming players, it'll be placed majorly on the manager. That seems off to me.

I don't think Arteta's the best manager in the world, doubt he will ever get close to be honest. I think he's a decent young manager with flaws as it stands who might go on to become one of the better managers in the league with experience, time and backing from the club.

The thing is, bar a few exceptions none of us know who Arteta's signings are, which are Edu's or a collaborative affair. If you like Arteta you find reasons to give him the credit for the good ones and blame someone else for the poor ones and vice verse.

 

[El Duderino]

Just jumping in on that part here, because I've never had any Arteta-Neutral or Arteta-Positive come in with counter-arguments to any of my posts below, so I'd be curious if you think there's nothing about these that makes you go, "huh, maybe Arteta isn't the guy".



A lot of his own quotes are in this overview, and they go in many directions, and points fingers in even more.
And to add to that, this doesn't even include some of the other dodgy decisions he's made as there's only so much space.




When we lost to an injury-ridden Newcastle team with a horrible performance while only missing a few starters. That was something we've seen several times with Arteta. Lose some of the main players and we crumble. With just the 1 tournament since January as well we still somehow looked depleted of energy at the end. The lack of rotation we saw at large during the season is Arteta's responsibility, and likewise the decision to banish/loan/release so many players in January with no cover was also with his green-light.




There's the whole "culture" topic that's been resurfacing lately.
Arteta has definitely played a part in that illusion being created.
In reality, we have released and frozen out any player who strayed from Arteta's ideology, and yet, now what 2½-3years into his tenure we have both fixed the culture as well as realized we need to bring in consultants and work on "The Arsenal Way". The way we have handled (or not handled) disputes in the squad has at times been a farce. The Auba situation that you discussed before as well being a pretty clear one, where a player, captain and all, was publicly ostracised and subsequently had his value completely tanked to the point you'd think he was a 40yo striker who could barely move anymore. Paid him off to leave and then he performs well straight away at his next destination.

That has to be something that you judge Arteta's character and manager ability on.
Part of his job is literally to manage the squad. And using the media against certain players to build agendas, and paying off "trouble-makers" is not usually something people would call good managing.




This one is long, and only some of the parts in there are actually relevant to this post. Some of them are just either jokes or whatever, bu some of them are quite interesting again as they show stats, Arteta's comments after performances and how again he wanted to make it clear that Pepe was the reason we lost a game where Pepe got red-carded. When the same happened with Xhaka getting a red card it was a very different tune from Arteta.


Then there could be made further arguments and talk on many other points around how he handles things at the club, and how despite a full squad having changed the team to a vast extent, just look at the team when Arteta arrived, and the team almost 2 years after

Spoiler

And yet there are still people who have repeatedly excused him for not having his own players and that we need to give him more time to implement his playing style.

The excuse of young players comes up too, but when he arrived he tried to get experienced players in, and that blew up in his face at large, so a sudden change to youth was made, and that has not exactly been a clear success either.

I don't really mean to get too involved in this again, because it's a topic where little will change each's opinion, but curious if you still don't find anything thought provoking looking this through, even if you only glance at it.

Did Abou's Arteta out twin hack your account?

 

[El Duderino]

This is your friendly reminder to use 2-step auth with your authenticator of choice to protect your passwords wherenver you can.

Including on this here website, lest you end up hacked like @Heskey

 

[Makingtrax]

Let me start by saying that I dont just want Arteta to do well for the sake of being right, convenience, the project and moving forward with minimal effort, etc. I have seen genuine positive movement from our position at the end of the Europa League semi final 2020/21 to where we are today in terms of recruitment and work done on the field.

On tailoring statistics to suit your narrative, I'm with you there 100%. The question I would ask you in return is why we have so many views that support this idea that Arteta and team are doing a good job with the squad rebuild. Further to that, are the club happy to extend this manager's contract and spend club record amounts to back him. What's your take on this?

You’re at the heart of the mystery. If there really is some sort of Arteta magic going on behind the scenes, transforming this club, I don’t understand why I can’t find tangible evidence of it? I can see some progress over two very poor finishes, but I see nothing to say that he’s outperformed KSE’s spend. Good managers can do that eg Klopp, Arsène, Potter.

If things go really well next year and Arteta’s project does go bang then I believe those pundits, posters and fans saying I told you so will have got there through faith and guesswork rather than reason.

 

[Rimaal]

I don't know what to say to that. I gave you clear evidence in that example not based on opinion. If Auba had gone to Barca and been anything other outstanding in his end product then you would have had a case, particularly if we'd tried to big it up.

Most of those on here that criticise Arteta for not being good enough are posters I greatly respect like @albakos, @Macho, @Trilly and many others. They're mainly evidenced based posters and far from being cultist.

I'm a little hurt, tbh.

 

[Rimaal]

I think he’s saying that you can be a dickhead if you’re winning so give him a chance and let’s see if he’ll get the wins.

Usually people earn the right to be dickheads by being successful. Being a dickhead whilst a nothing failure is a terrible sign, imagine the sort of monster he'll be once granted the heady power that success brings.

 

[Makingtrax]

I'm a little hurt, tbh.

That was the greatly ‘respect’ list, not ‘idolise’

 

[Trilly]

I'm not a squad cost guy but I do agree there's generally a correlation between the cost of your squad / spending and where you finish, seems logical to me. If you finish more than a place either side of your squad cost, you've done well or poorly. You do have anomalies like Leicester winning the league or Man Utd this season though. So I don't think you can draw straight lines from it.

Particularly with us this season, I'd say Saka and ESR contributed as many points to us as anyone this season other than maybe Ramsdale and they don't exist by this squad cost stuff. It puts me off it. Too many intangibles.

If we're saying it's investment and squad cost that are close to being the bee all and end all though ( which I don't really buy) Arteta or any manager is actually an irrelevance. If we keep investing we'll just improve irrespective of whoevers at the helm. He's not a problem. In fact he's probably a net positive as he's at least played a part in getting the money guys to splash the cash, at least to this point.

Yeah agree, I feel like you start to see diminishing returns with regards to squad cost as you get closer to the top of the table and deeper in cup runs. It's not the be all and end all but a strong indicator. While I do think any 'ok' manager can spend their way into the top four (see Ole and Lampard) I do think there are still ways Arteta can get top four and still demonstrate his value.

He can't follow up two bad seasons with an ok season and be the best thing since sliced bread, people are mistaking progress for success and that's probably the single biggest cause of all the conflict on here.

I think the onus is on him to clearly demonstrate that it's not just the money. E.g. being able to consistently compete with City/Liverpool in one-off games, finishing 1-2 places above squad cost or simply hitting an impressive points total. There are loads of ways he can spend a lot and still show that he's good. Having those aspirational targets are more than fair imo because we're eventually going to need the manager himself to add value.

The logic to me seems to be, if we finish where we should or above that will be down to the quality of the players and the investment. not the manager. But if we finish lower than we're expected to I don't think the blame will be going on underperforming players, it'll be placed majorly on the manager. That seems off to me.

Because of the 'bad will' he's built up he could have a decent season and still not win over his doubters. But I'm 100% sure that if he does what I said above and has a great then the only people left against him would have an unfair agenda.

 

[Entropics]

In a way you can see why Arteta gets patience based on nothing, exciting transfer windows and wasting so much money were things completely alien to the fans before his time. Ignoring wrong statements like how we have improved under him (see the Emery points barrier) or that we play exciting football not seen since Wengerball (see any match thread) that's what you're left with, we're building a new young team that can grow together and challenge

That comes with its caveats too, like ignoring all that money spent on defenders translated to more goals conceded and a worse goal difference, or how we keep getting rid of the players that end up topping or goals and assists chart for some strange reason, or how none of the new signings particularly impressed, only Ødegaard can be defended a bit.

The top 4 of bust thing is nothing new, same line back then was winning the EL. He got spanked by Emery, missed out on Europe altogether and nothing happened. That's why I believe the new baseline is 6th, probably 7th thanks to the Conference League. That's ok for the owner and stakeholders, it's their club and they can do whatever they want with it, but for the fans? I see no reason it should be.

 

[Deleted member 102404]

Wow, top 4 is successful? AM told me 'any manager could get top 4 with Arsenal' and 'it wasn't a trophy'.

I think you need to let go of the Wenger thing TBH. He is an Arsenal legend and for his first decade the best manager - IMO - who ever graced these shores. Nothing can take that away. Arteta is not even close to that. It’s a different time. If you hang on to Wenger’s best years the vast majority of your Arsenal supporting life from here on in will be a disappointment.

 

[El Duderino]

 

[Rimaal]

Copy & paste Arteta - a dash of Wenger, a pinch of Pep, and a tbs of Moyes.

 

[Entropics]

Man was on track to equal De Boer's manager performance until he copied a trick from Wenger's book.

Wenger saving us again

 

[Makingtrax]

I think you need to let go of the Wenger thing TBH. He is an Arsenal legend and for his first decade the best manager - IMO - who ever graced these shores. Nothing can take that away. Arteta is not even close to that. It’s a different time. If you hang on to Wenger’s best years the vast majority of your Arsenal supporting life from here on in will be a disappointment.

Wenger’s best years were 2004 or 2013, top 4 every year spending nothing on players is ridiculous. Look how hard it is for this guy spending a fortune to get there once. If Arteta is doing anything, it’s showing how truly great Arsène was.