Mikel Arteta: Managerial Royalty

[Rasmi]

Got a problem with that you little fiend?

I’m open minded. I don’t judge people based on their fetish

 

[Gursha]

Id rather have a manager whos **** with **** players but world class with world class players, than a manager that can get more out of **** players and will be above his league with wc players.

I feel that arteta cant adjust to players being ****.

and thats our status bar a few.

if we back him up and give squad depth and give the rebuild a true chance, and he still fails, then im all in for the sack..

Till then, im pleased with what he did.

Even competing for 4th this season is overachieving... you cannot release 10 players and bring 10 in in 1-3 windows...
ill get flak for that but... its a process... and i think for the first times in years, even decades... we cleared all the deadwood... maybe just 1-3 left.

and guess what? with no deadwood we are super thin squad... so finally a manager got the green light for a full clear out and you all are crying?

next window we gonna go big. if not, ill pull my hat and concede that this entire thing was ****..
but if everything will go as i think its going... im very excited for the future.. and i hope the board will ignore the cry out from the fans who want instant success with 10-15 out and 10-15 wc players in in 1 january window.

and keep backing Arteta.

 

[Rasmi]

It's really something else.. Did you also hear all the **** he said about basketball in the interview?
Man's all over the place.

Just like when he was losing games in bulk last season and threw around the percentages talk, he should stick to his blue steel gaze and his pseudotactical comments.

Yeah like if you have 25 shots and opponents has one shot you win by 10 or more. He clearly don’t know much about basketball. He constantly says weird thing that makes no sense and never called out on it. Like they are really down and trying to figure out what they can do better. Isn’t his job to tell them what they can do better?

 

[Sapient Hawk]

You'd have to consider 5th a success at this point I think. I personally would anyways.

I don't really buy into 4th or sacked I'm afraid. I mean if it were up to me that would be the case, but like OnlyOne pointed out I don't think that's necessarily what we are trying to do here. Otherwise purchases would have been made in Jan.

Curious as to how you reckon we'll end up 5th when we can't seem to buy a goal, nevermind a win

Chances are we'll end up closer to Villa than United.

 

[Sapient Hawk]

I still maintain that we've got 7 games left and I'll reserve ultimate judgement of Arteta until the end of the season. Football can be a little weird sometimes and I think we should atleast hope that we start to perform better as I never like seeing us lose.

We are now in the "Endgame", Chelsea and Utd this week. Anything less than 3 points and it is finished. 4 points and we are still looking good and 6 points (which would be a miracle) and suddenly we are looking like perhaps favs for top 4 again.

I actually want to talk about a few positives we can take from this season. On the whole I like the direction of the squad and I've generally been happy with the signings. I've admitted that I got it wrong with the Ramsdale signing and I still maintain that he's been good this season.

Our defensive record has been quite alright. Of the three "serious contenders" for top 4 (Utd, Sp*rs and us) we have conceded the least goals (that said Wolves have conceded less than us with a very excellent 28 goals let in this season, a great achievement).

We've also kept 13 clean sheets so far this season; 4th best in the league and to put it into some perspective; our Invincible team kept 15 clean sheets.

We've taken 483 shots this season; third best in the league. 155 of those have been on target which is a less impressive sixth best in the league.

Also it's important to point out that out position isn't "false". If we go by expected points it would leave us in 5th in the table currently (so actually one place above).

Finally, between January and the Palace game I think that we started to play better and controlled the games more, we recorded 20 shots or more in the Burnley (yes I know it was a bad draw), Brentford, Wolves (home) and Leicester games.

We restricted the opposition to 10 shots or less in 6 out of 8 of those games.

Now, I can't talk about positives without negatives. The biggest biggest indictment of Arteta's style of play is that we just do not create enough good chances, consistently.

I think it's good that we are finally taking more shots and recording a lot of shots too, but we have only created 34 big chances this season, 16th best in the league which quite frankly is pitiful.

Plus with 45 goals scored that puts us behind Utd, Sp*rs, West Ham and level with Leicester this season which is simply not good enough.

I think we've seen in the last three games that;

A. We are still not confident enough to continually break teams down and break them apart with offensive play.

B. We seem to worry too much about keeping possession and control rather than taking risks.

C. We are f*cked if we go even 1 down.

I was listening to the Legrove podcast and they made the really good point that Alexis Sanchez lost the ball all of the time, and probably wouldn't be a player that Arteta would play or like much lol.

Yet we can all see that Sanchez was so great for us exactly because he did take risks; how can you expect to consistently hurt teams if you're trying to set up boring, sterile and predictable patterns of attack.

I very much doubt we will ever be a truly great offensive team under Arteta unless we start giving the offense more freedom. The players shouldn't be so afraid to make mistakes that it stifles their ability to create.

Finally for the negatives, his man management leaves A LOT to be desired. I think this is well trodden ground at this point so I won't talk much more about it but yeah, not good.

Endgame was Palace, Brighton & Southampton. Had those been 9 points, we would've put daylight between us & United & kept Sp**s at arms length.

The stage we're at now is the first 40 minutes of Terminator: Salvation, where you realize the machines are actually doing us all a favor in wiping out Christian Bale & his cookie-cutter group of rag-tag apocalypse survivors.

 

[Paperino]

Anyone understand why he hate the U23 boys and refuse to use them no matter what?

 

[Maybe]

Anyone understand why he hate the U23 boys and refuse to use them no matter what?

He hates many players, the u23 boys are just some of them

 

[lamby22]

History repeating itself here, the board waited too long to sack Emery and are going to do exactly the same with Arteta. We aren't a serious football club.

 

[Paperino]

He hates many players, the u23 boys are just some of them

I just find it weird since The Athletic (Artetas mistress Amy Lawrence if i remember correctly) told me that Hale End is the english La Masia.

 

[Maybe]

I just find it weird since The Athletic (Artetas mistress Amy Lawrence if i remember correctly) told me that Hale End is the english La Masia.

Probably not, but it's not far from that. I think our academy is still one of the best, it's just not being used to its full potential with some questionable management over the years.

I'm not against Lokonga at all, but makes me think what does he offer over Patino and Azeez? It's just 20M down the toilet while you have academy players of the same caliber to use

 

[Macho]

Curious as to how you reckon we'll end up 5th when we can't seem to buy a goal, nevermind a win

Chances are we'll end up closer to Villa than United.

The teams around us aren't good and will keep us in it. Nothing to do with Mikel and the kids really.

The other teams literally got us this far lmao

 

[Tir Na Nog]

That passive aggressive sh1t he does kills me. Blames the player saying they haven’t done it in this league. He hasn’t done it anywhere as manager

He's just a complete dickhead. It's not even a case of a manager being out of his depth and feeling sorry for him, I've no ounce of sympathy for this ****** at all.

 

[Paperino]

The teams around us aren't good and will keep us in it. Nothing to do with Mikel and the kids really.

The other teams literally got us here lmao

The kids? There is only adults in the squad.

 

[Paperino]

He's just a complete dickhead. It's not even a case of a manager being out of his depth and feeling sorry for him, I've no ounce of sympathy for this ****** at all.

Used to think he was a very sensible guy with a heart of gold when he played for us. But he is obviously an arrogant narcissist.

 

[Flying Okapis]

Be surprised if we pick up more than 3 points before the season ends if these knobs keep playing like this.

Finishing 7/8th is actually a possibility, clubs mentality at the moment is that of a loser and if we flop into a 7/8th place finish the damage is going to be very bad on these 'young guns', type of season that turns players into perma-flops.

 

[Sapient Hawk]

Be surprised if we pick up more than 3 points before the season ends if these knobs keep playing like this.

Finishing 7/8th is actually a possibility, clubs mentality at the moment is that of a loser and if we flop into a 7/8th place finish the damage is going to be very bad on these 'young guns', type of season that turns players into perma-flops.

I certainly hope that's the case.

If they tank the season, Arteta won't have a leg to stand on & the feckless board will lose any excuse to retain his inadequate services as he clearly hasn't improved anything.

The fear is that they will overlook someone like Potter, whom I honestly believe is destined for bigger things, and go for a continental manager whose only attribute is name recognition & little else.

 

[Rasmi]

He's just a complete dickhead. It's not even a case of a manager being out of his depth and feeling sorry for him, I've no ounce of sympathy for this ****** at all.

Extremely unlikable character. I will enjoy his sacking and humiliation. Guys like Emery and Nuno when Sp**s sacked him you could see are gentlemen. But this guy is off

 

[Penn_]

I question how true this notion of players really buying into Arteta’s process. For all the talk of it tell me who looks like they’d die out there for him?

Sounds like empty words to me, players just trying to avoid the same fate as Auba etc.

 

[Sebastes]

The man cannot manage. Nothing more to it.

 

[Sapient Hawk]

Extremely unlikable character. I will enjoy his sacking and humiliation. Guys like Emery and Nuno when Sp**s sacked him you could see are gentlemen. But this guy is off

Hope he's put on an ass & paraded across London in his pants like Guy De Lusignan in "Kingdom of Heaven".

It's the least he deserves for the distress he's caused us fans for the duration of his horrible tenure