Mikel Arteta: Mid-table Mikel

[El Duderino]

How many managers in the league get given “their players” until it works?

I think you’ll find most make do with what is given and some that do are even higher than us. Arteta has been backed and will get backed this summer too, but it won’t help him.

Arteta should be given the same amount of time as Emery got. If he needs that much more then why on Earth are you hiring him for?

Mate, you're talking to the last man standing from the defunct Emery Defense League, wasting your time there.

 

[Legend14]

Partey is a complete midfielder who can do everything well. He can fit in either a 4-2-3-1 4-3-3 or 4-1-4-1.

Only seen him with a partner. Again, no reason to change the formation we are now used to.

 

[Maybe]

Only seen him with a partner. Again, no reason to change the formation we are now used to.

There is 1 good reason, which is 10th place on the table. Do you think we would get relegated if we drop Xhaka and try something new for a change?

 

[Makingtrax]

Shots on target = dumbest stat in football.

Shots attempts inside 18 is more indicative. I think we had enough to win comfortably.

I’m guessing any stat that shows up your agenda is dumb.

 

[Tree Points]

Hey, let me highlight a few differences between Van Gaal and Arteta for you.

Van Gaal	Arteta
Experienced manager brought in to "win now"	Inexperienced manager brought in to develop club in transition
Took over most expensive squad in the league, which had won 5 titles in the last 8 seasons, had finished outside the top 4 once in the last 23 seasons, and (even with Moyes's disasterclass) had averaged 81 points / season in the three seasons before he arrived	Took over a club in 10th place, which hadn't won the title in 16 years, had finished outside the top 4 for three years straight, and which hadn't got over 80 points in the league for over 11 years
Spent £316m, highest in the league	Spent £83m, 8th in the league
Won 1 FA Cup	Won 1 FA Cup, 1 Community Shield, and still in with a chance of the Europa
Given two full seasons	Hasn't yet had a full season
Football was dire	Football clearly improving

Hope that helps.

Your football is terrible under Arteta! Mate I hope you keep Mikel for 20 years and it’s pointless debating with you. Van Gaal has forgotten more about football than Arteta will ever know. But there’s a minority of Arteta fanboys on here who are like a cult.

Midtable Micky has a better team than Emery had yet his team are in TENTH! Tenth place!

 

[say yes]

Your football is terrible under Arteta! Mate I hope you keep Mikel for 20 years and it’s pointless debating with you.

Midtable Micky has a better team than Emery had yet his team are in TENTH! Tenth place!

Pointless because you can’t land a single point.

Let me know if you make any more inane comparisons so I can tear them down again.

 

[Tree Points]

Pointless because you can’t land a single point.

Let me know if you make any more inane comparisons so I can tear them down again.

OK:

Arteta isn’t a very good manager. Arsenal could do a lot better. You can’t argue with that.

David Moyes would be doing a better job with your squad of players than midtable Micky.

 

[Rasmi]

OK:

Arteta isn’t a very good manager. Arsenal could do a lot better. You can’t argue with that.

David Moyes would be doing a better job with your squad of players than midtable Micky.

Hence why the thread is called mid table Mikel. Most of us are not deluded about him

 

[scytheavatar]

Partey plays better with a Partner. We have the personnel for a 4-2-3–1. Why change again to a 4-3-3 and start again?

Partey was dreaful yesterday, way worse than Xhaka. He needs to step up and show more before we should pretend he's some pillar we need to build the team around. Seems that he's the type of player who is 7/10 most of the time but will occasionally be 3/10 which is unacceptable. Even Özil at his worst guarantees 5/10 level performances.

 

[say yes]

OK:

Arteta isn’t a very good manager. Arsenal could do a lot better. You can’t argue with that.

David Moyes would be doing a better job with your squad of players than midtable Micky.

I can argue with all of that. And it's hilarious to see people talking about Moyes as a top manager again. Before West Ham his recent record was of being a spectacular failure at United and Sociedad, and then relegation at Sunderland. But hey ho, let's all massively overreact to one season of decent results (which are not merited on xG and won't be sustained) because he's now the reactionary moron's flavour of the month again.

Never ceases to amaze me how short-term / results-biased football fans still are. Greatest and most sophisticated sport in the world and yet people like you may as well still be watching cavemen kick bundles of poo around for all the understanding you demonstrate.

 

[Tree Points]

Hence why the thread is called mid table Mikel. Most of us are not deluded about him

I know this, most of you talk a lot of sense and I find your posts interesting.

But there is a small minority of deluded fans in here and they’ve got no evidence they can reference when trying to prove Arteta is a good manager who has improved Arsenal apart from an FA Cup win, which many average managers have won.

The league is how progress and success is measured but unfortunately there are two or three lads in here who refuse to accept this.

 

[Rasmi]

I know this, most of you talk a lot of sense and I find your posts interesting.

But there is a small minority of deluded fans in here and they’ve got no evidence they can reference when trying to prove Arteta is a good manager who has improved Arsenal apart from an FA Cup win, which many average managers have won.

The league is how progress and success is measured but unfortunately there are two or three lads in here who refuse to accept this.

every fan base has small number of fans who believe part of being good fan is backing the manager always. These fans stay with the manager until the day he gets sacked and the moment next one comes they will be equally loyal to him. They are bunch of freaks imo

 

[mirrorstare]

I guess thinking football is sophisticated is something you can see in common with Arteta supporters, though I've seen it mostly on reddit as they try to fit whatever little stat they can into a concrete evidence of the positivity trend the results and performances on the pitch aren't really showing. That's why the table since christmas is still a thing, or why the Xg stopped mattering until it started to become the perfect metric to see how well we are doing, or why Arteta's job apparently stops at the final third and it all falls on Edu buying the next Haaland, even when we are back to conceding a goal every game. It certainly has gone a bit further than the defense you saw for Emery, I guess backed up by authority statements, people like Pep or Bielsa saying Arteta is so amazing for what he's achieving here, or the famous Athletic meme pieces.

There's something to say about considering football is this complex stuff beyond the grasp of us mere spectators, but it derails very quickly to uncomfortable places so let's leave it at that.

 

[Legend14]

There is 1 good reason, which is 10th place on the table. Do you think we would get relegated if we drop Xhaka and try something new for a change?

Do you think changing the formation will solve our problems? How so? 10th place isn’t because of the 4-2-3-1 formation, its because we don’t execute.

 

[Legend14]

I’m guessing any stat that shows up your agenda is dumb.

What agenda would that be? Just a dumb comment if you have read any of my posts.

 

[Legend14]

Partey was dreaful yesterday, way worse than Xhaka. He needs to step up and show more before we should pretend he's some pillar we need to build the team around. Seems that he's the type of player who is 7/10 most of the time but will occasionally be 3/10 which is unacceptable. Even Özil at his worst guarantees 5/10 level performances.

Your conclusion from what you have seen from an injured Partey so far? Ok.

Yesterday was a poor second half. Lets see how he does after a couple more games. We’ll come back to your comment.

 

[Legend14]

I know who have been consistently anti-arteta (win or lose) and have provided fair arguments over the season. Others come out of their holes after losses with random, irrelevant comments.

 

[Maybe]

Do you think changing the formation will solve our problems? How so? 10th place isn’t because of the 4-2-3-1 formation, its because we don’t execute.

You can probably drop someone like Xhaka if you change formation and pull Ödegaard back into CM. That way you get more control of the game and one less idiot on the pitch.

 

[14Henry]

I know who have been consistently ant-arteta (win or lose) and have provided fair arguments over the season. Others come out of their holes after losses with random, irrelevant comments.

The thing is Arteta supporters call people like me hiding in hole until he loses. The problem is we can't come here singing his praises for periodic wins over teams we should be beating.

Especially when we have seen that these periodic wins are usually followed by flat performances. Which indicates that the only reason we won the match is because on that given day we played better. However to judge a team properly you have to look at every game. And right now Arteta is failing.

A the odd win over Chelsea, United or Leciester doesn't make it OK to take 1 point from Burnley/Villa/Wolves.

Where you are and finish in the league gives a clear indication of how successful the manager and team has been.

Overachieving would have been 3rd/4th.

Par would have been 5th/6th/7th.

Anything below that is complete and utter failure. All this. We are improving. If we are improving results improve. If we are playing so much better now than before we shouldn't be desperately needing at 87th minute winner to beat the worst Benfica side in probably my lifetime.

We shouldn't be drawing with Burnleys. We shouldn't be playing for nothing in the league by March. Emery fcked it up in the last few games and people were raging. So close but failed. However this is 10 times worse. Not competitive at all.

 

[say yes]

Oh look you're still going. This is what you said:



Unsurprisingly, despite the interesting claim that you're being "fair and reasonable", he hasn't called them crap *once*, let alone "at every opportunity". I don't understand why you're so desperate to make this up?

The only quote anyone has provided so far (still nothing from you) was an interview from December where he said he wanted to improve on 5-6 "positions" to play the way he wants consistently. Do I really need to keep spelling this out for you?

1. That's not calling anyone crap.
2. He doesn't specify any individual, specific position, or even whether it's starting level or depth he wants to improve. So I don't see how any individual is going to react badly to that.
3. Our performances and results have massively improved since that December interview and there's not even a sniff of disquiet in the squad, so nobody seems to have interpreted it like you want them to have.
4. It's bleeding obvious we need to improve 5-6 positions (at least), and you'd be slaughtering him if he said any different.
5. Again. That's not calling anyone crap.

We done now, or do you want to keep digging?

You going to respond to this @Macho ? Would love to see you substantiate your claim that Arteta has been calling the players crap at every opportunity.

Or was your whole "fair and reasonable" thing just an act?