Mikel Arteta: Aston La Vista To The Title?

[Riou]

Remember when we bought Xhaka...Arsène didn't know what to make of him!

Arsène said he was a box to box midfielder, Granit though described himself as a false DM ffs

He must have been an Ivan signing, nothing else makes sense.

 

[Oxeki]

What about West Ham? Aston Villa? Leicester? Leeds get promoted and instantly break their transfer record?

Nobody bats an eyelid when mid-table clubs spend £20m on a player yet people want to pretend the league has always been like this.

Based on squad strength, are those teams supposed to be ahead of us on the table?

Only one or two players at most from those teams could make our team. But they're ahead of us on the table. I have no problem apportioning blames to the players but for some on here to pretend as if the manager has no hand in our current position makes me fume tbh.

A poster above said the common denominator in our decline for the past 3 years is the players. But he forgets to mention that Wenger in his final years had a weaker squad than this. But still managed to finish fifth (1 point behind klopp's Liverpool). Emery with a with a backline of Kola, Papa and Mustafi finished 5th,1 point outside CL places. But no one said the PL was stronger then. The argument has changed from a few weeks ago now to "The PL is stronger now"

Most of the losses we had this season was not because we were weaker than our opponent. It was Arteta's ineptitude that killed us.


Sorry for going off on a tangent.

 

[Rimaal]

What about West Ham? Aston Villa? Leicester? Leeds get promoted and instantly break their transfer record?

Nobody bats an eyelid when mid-table clubs spend £20m on a player yet people want to pretend the league has always been like this.

No one is denying the effect of TV money, but again you can't ignore the rise in price of players that was caused by it. Midtable clubs are spending but the talent they are acquiring is still well below talent acquired or even considered by top flight clubs. Where small clubs can make 1 or 2 marquee signings for midlevel talent, top clubs have a squad full of quality.

It's tactics more than money that is making a bigger difference. It's money spent on training and training facilities. It's midtable clubs getting managers like Ranieri, Hasenhuttl and Ancelotti. Who could have ever imagined Ancelotti at Everton? That's where the money made the real difference.

Midtable clubs buying record breaking footballers for 20M (probably a 3 million player in 2002 money) can't compare with us buying Pepe for 72 Million or Pool spending 70 odd on a defender.

However, the real advantage top flight clubs have, which midtable and poorer clubs will never have is depth. Quality in depth. A quality that will enable them to make a run through a full season in multiple competitions and thrive where smaller clubs will sink.

 

[Garrincha]

Remember when we bought Xhaka...Arsène didn't know what to make of him!

Arsène said he was a box to box midfielder, Granit though described himself as a false DM ffs

He must have been a Ivan signing, nothing else makes sense.

think there are interviews out there with Xhaka talking about his conversations with Wenger leading up to signing

putting Xhaka & Özil in the same team was ambitious as **** from Wenger ... the spine that killed him

 

[Makingtrax]

I'm not trying to use this as some defence of Arteta, it explains why historically weaker clubs have become more competitive in recent times. That's all.

Man City haven't maxed out and I haven't said they have. The better your squad gets the harder it becomes to improve on however much money you have, it's not rocket science.

Arsenal have spent their money poorly generally over the past 4-5 years and that largely explains why we're not where we should be. Another argument you refuse to entertain. You look at it in such a black and white, non footballing way, £100m spent = £100m of talent in real terms added to the squad, when that's clearly not the case.

I know you're a stats and data guy, I'm like that with cricket, but sometimes you've got to put the charts and data away and look at things from a footballing perspective. A chart or data isn't going to give you the totality of a situation or the answers to everything, however much you want it too.

If weaker clubs in general have become more competitive, show me the evidence and I’ll consider it. Can‘t be fairer than that. No anecdotal stuff mind.

 

[GDeep™]

I said in another post that Raul/Sven did a poor job of recruiting in 2018 and 2019.

What’s that go to do with anything?

 

[Riou]

think there are interviews out there with Xhaka talking about his conversations with Wenger leading up to signing

putting Xhaka & Özil in the same team was ambitious as **** from Wenger ... the spine that killed him

Xhaka, Özil and post 2014 Ramsey...be hard to find a worse midfield in the history of the sport, in terms of defensive contibutions

 

[Oxeki]

No one is denying the effect of TV money, but again you can't ignore the rise in price of players that was caused by it. Midtable clubs are spending but the talent they are acquiring is still well below talent acquired or even considered by top flight clubs. Where small clubs can make 1 or 2 marquee signings for midlevel talent, top clubs have a squad full of quality.

It's tactics more than money that is making a bigger difference. It's money spent on training and training facilities. It's midtable clubs getting managers like Ranieri, Hasenhuttl and Ancelotti. Who could have ever imagined Ancelotti at Everton? That's where the money made the real difference.

Midtable clubs buying record breaking footballers for 20M (probably a 3 million player in 2002 money) can't compare with us buying Pepe for 72 Million or Pool spending 70 odd on a defender.

However, the real advantage top flight clubs have, which midtable and poorer clubs will never have is depth. Quality in depth. A quality that will enable them to make a run through a full season in multiple competitions and thrive where smaller clubs will sink.

Exactly. Midtable has gotten wealthier but the talent they're buying now is still largely the same as they were buying before. The only difference is that average players are now more expensive. 40m can only get you Joeliton or Haller these days and both are bums.

Like you said, it's the coaching that have made the difference. Several midtable clubs have better managers than us. That's what AM keep ignoring.

 

[Rimaal]

You obviously either didn't understand or more likely ignored what I said. I'm not disputing any of that data. It's your analysis of that data which is incorrect.

It's so clear what I any others have said is correct. I legitimately don't know how it can be explained to you in a more simplistic manner.

I will try one more time.

There is a limit to how good a football squad can be in terms of quality. Let's call that 100.

A club like Man City have a phenomenal squad. Let's say they're 90 on the quality scale.
To improve on the squad they have is exceptionally hard. If they spend £100m that's maybe 2 good squad players. Maybe they're a slight improvement on the players they're replacing. Let's say that pushes them up to 92 on their squad quality. That's a very marginal gain for a lot of money spent. That's not even taking into account the money a club that Man City have to spend just to stay stationery. High quality players age or lose performance and need replacing, that's a lot of money being spent just to stand still. Fernandinho and Aguero will be falling into that bracket soon.

Burnley are lets say a 30 on the quality scale. A relatively weak starting eleven and squad, I think we can all agree. Give them £50m. Let's say they buy two good players at £25m. Those two players are going to push Burnely up to maybe a 35 on the quality scale because they're a big upgrade on the players they're replacing quality wise.

The point is the lower you are on the quality scale the easier it is to improve your squad with money, like the Burnley example. The higher up you are on the quality scale the harder it is to improve your squad even if you spend a lot more money because there is a ceiling to how good any football side can be and a club like Man City are much closer to that limit.

Your analysis assumes that there are a plethora of players that can give you that 90 level squad. There aren't. What what players exist, say over a football period of 5 years (Neymar, Mbappe, Lewa, Aguero, Kane) will be fought over by top flight clubs for top flight money. Look at Haaland, only 4-5 clubs stand a chance of getting him.

Once you get to the 90 level, which is almost impossible to achieve, your goal is to maintain the level, not really to improve it. To remain amongst the elite by buying only elite players and staff. Once you reach that level, it's a barrier of entry in and of itself that only the club itself can take down by failing to maintain e,g Barca and RM.

 

[Rex Stone]

You say "the end to last season would've suffered" as if that's a minor consideration?

I'm not Xhaka's biggest fan but he was instrumental to our run-in & winning the FA Cup, which qualified us for Europe. That was worth far more financially than the loan + £26m obligation Hertha reportedly offered. Your numbers on financial benefit are just wrong when you take that into account.

But hey ho, if people think Arteta made a big error in failing to sell Xhaka in his first month in charge, and then using Xhaka to win the FA Cup & qualify us for Europe, then so be it. I disagree, but at least we can all admit he's far less culpable there than Wenger (signed Xhaka & didn't sell him) and Emery (didn't sell him), who both had far more opportunity to get rid (and couldn't get even him to perform).

We can’t play the games again. As I said before Guendouzi was still around and AMN could’ve played in midfield so who knows how we’d have done in the same games which were both rearguard actions.

I don’t think you can say definitively with no Xhaka there’s no FA Cup.

It doesn’t have to be a Wenger/Emery thing either. Wenger held on to players for too long and it looks like Arteta’s done the same with a few now.

 

[Toby]

Amidst Liverpool meltdown and our own mediocre season, would you trade in Arteta for Klopp?

a) Klopp won't be fired by Liverpool for one bad season during a pandemic with their sort of injury luck
b) Klopp won't coach another PL team, just as he imo won't coach another BL team after BVB

Guess it's early retirement or Spain/Italy for him after Liverpool.

 

[Makingtrax]

Exactly. Midtable has gotten wealthier but the talent they're buying now is still largely the same as they were buying before. The only difference is that average players are now more expensive. 40m can only get you Joeliton or Haller these days and both are bums.

Like you said, it's the coaching that have made the difference. Several midtable clubs have better managers than us. That's what AM keep ignoring.

And some like Everton have new owners, investing more.

 

[Harz]

Wonder where the Usmanov gang will take Everton

Maybe they will want an experienced young coach who has a history with Everton

 

[A_G]

What’s that go to do with anything?

£300m as you claim has been spent but it hasn’t been spent well.

 

[Riou]

Tbf to Xhaka, his elite gamesmanship in the final against Chelsea last year, to get Kovavic sent off, was almost as important as Auba's 2 goals...love that game, dad was absolutely fuming

 

[Rex Stone]

£300m as you claim has been spent but it hasn’t been spent well.

Still think you’re wrong on Sven. Guendouzi and Mavrapanos are clearly levels above what we paid for them and in a non-Covid world they’re easily worth four or five times what we paid for them.

Lichtensteiner was a one year free with a break clause who clearly wasn’t supposed to see the field much until Bellerin did his ACL.

Torreira just didn’t settle in England but you can see how rated he is overseas because there’s always five or six clubs trying to get hold of him.

Only really Sokratis I’d consider a flop and again he’s someone we probably could’ve moved easily enough if not for the pandemic.

Considering the work he’s done before and after us, the players he wanted to target in 2019 and the fact he got our two best players for relative bargains I’d say it’s a reach to call him out.

 

[mirrorstare]

Wonder how much money Arteta will get next season, considering the bad finances but how reportedly there's still plenty of trust in the tank

Aside from Bellerin I doubt we can cash in a lot from Laca or our exiled loanees, so doesn't seem to be a lot of money on the table even after selling players.

 

[A_G]

Based on squad strength, are those teams supposed to be ahead of us on the table?

Only one or two players at most from those teams could make our team. But they're ahead of us on the table. I have no problem apportioning blames to the players but for some on here to pretend as if the manager has no hand in our current position makes me fume tbh.

A poster above said the common denominator in our decline for the past 3 years is the players. But he forgets to mention that Wenger in his final years had a weaker squad than this. But still managed to finish fifth (1 point behind klopp's Liverpool). Emery with a with a backline of Kola, Papa and Mustafi finished 5th,1 point outside CL places. But no one said the PL was stronger then. The argument has changed from a few weeks ago now to "The PL is stronger now"

Most of the losses we had this season was not because we were weaker than our opponent. It was Arteta's ineptitude that killed us.


Sorry for going off on a tangent.

I never used the strength of the league as a defence for Arteta, I just made an observation about the effect of the new tv contracts and it set people off for some reason.

 

[Harz]

It's not that hard really. Even if Mik doesn't have anything at all to do with transfers, he's done a **** job with the squad he has and is underachieving horrendously. Such underachievement is only acceptable if either:

1. He has a pedigree that implies he could right the ship,
2. He has shown signs of improvement that promises better things to come, or
3. The team is in rebuild and he's aiming for the future.

(1) is certainly not the case as it's his first job, unless you consider the FA cup run last year to be a resounding success. (2) is certainly not the case because the best winning streak in the league he was able to put together is only three games long in a total of 47 games managed, which brings us to the last option. As has been uttered many times, he refuses to give time to players who would be involved in our future and instead continues to play the same veterans despite the terrible results as if there is pressure to win-now.

I agree that we should be planning for the future, be more patient and rebuild but continuing to do so with the wrong choice of manager will make things only worse. Our youth players' development will be negatively affected, our pulling power for future transfers will vanish and it will be ever harder to come back from the mid-table mediocrity we're descending into.

 

[dashsnow17]

Klopp would win for me, it's not even a contest, he's much taller and he's a mad b*stard when he's angry. No way turtleneck Mick is winning in a fight.