Mikel Arteta: Aston La Vista To The Title?

[14Henry]

It’s been an awful season in the PL yet if you win the EL for all practical purposes what’s the difference between 2nd and 17th? All that matters is you are in the CL next season. This season is a write off as far as the PL is concerned.

If you do not see the difference in finishing 2nd and 10th or 17th then I'm afraid I can't really have a decent conversation with you. I am most certainly not going to waste my time explaining it.

 

[AbouCuéllar]

@GDeep™

Tbf, including signing bonuses, it looks like it's somewhere closer to 180-200k a week (£10,000) a year:

Willian da Silva

Willian da Silva contract and salary cap details, contract breakdowns, dead money, and news.

www.spotrac.com

It was a poor signing, no doubt, would've been much better off putting that money toward James, for example, or going for Buendía, but you could see the thinking, a trusted player who managers love, to bring some quality and experience to our attack and club. Poor scouting though, because red flags should've been raised about his level, but I don't understand why that is all on Arteta...

 

[Atlas]

If you do not see the difference in finishing 2nd and 10th or 17th then I'm afraid I can't really have a decent conversation with you. I am most certainly not going to waste my time explaining it.

If you are going to ignore my points then it is indeed a waste of time.

 

[14Henry]

If you are going to ignore my points then it is indeed a waste of time.

What point that it is irrelevant if we finish 2nd or 17th as long as we had won the EL?

 

[Jury]

Tbf, including signing bonuses, it looks like it's somewhere closer to 180-200k a week (£10,000) a year:

Willian da Silva

Willian da Silva contract and salary cap details, contract breakdowns, dead money, and news.

www.spotrac.com

It was a poor signing, no doubt, would've been much better off putting that money toward James, for example, or going for Buendía, but you could see the thinking, a trusted player who managers love, to bring some quality and experience to our attack and club. Poor scouting though, because red flags should've been raised about his level, but I don't understand why that is all on Arteta...

It was a 'poor' signing only in hindsight though. If ESR and Saka hadn't emerged, we'd have relied on him more and he'd surely have produced more. Add Pepe's improvement and it makes it even harder. We got him in to be a first teamer and he ended up a squad player because our squad players became almost undroppable. That's football, but you can't call him a poor signing because of that, because had I or Arteta known how things would unfold, I wouldn't have been keen on the signing at all and I'm sure he wouldn't be here. It was a sods law signing. All said, he could well have a part to play here. He wouldn't be the first player to be dogged by fans, only to become very important.

 

[Atlas]

What point that it is irrelevant if we finish 2nd or 17th as long as we had won the EL?

You didn't win the league yet you made it into the CL. That's all that matters as far as next season in concerned. A poor season in the league doesnt mean much in itself. Chelsea finished 10th in 15/16 and were league winners next season. 10th place didnt really mean jack then did it?

 

[grange]

No idea what discussion you are part of. I’m part of the “he deserves more time if he wins the EL discussion” and I’m in favor of it.

No need to argue with these weirdos. He's getting more time regardless of the results of this season so there's really no use for them to continue whining about him being here. They are now actively rooting for us to lose so he has a better chance of getting fired. It's pathetic.

 

[Atlas]

No need to argue with these weirdos. He's getting more time regardless of the results of this season so there's really no use for them to continue whining about him being here. They are now actively rooting for us to lose so he has a better chance of getting fired. It's pathetic.

I wanted him out myself when it was 15 points after 15 games. I realized then that it wasnt going to happen and that he was going to get another season to prove himself. Since then he's done well to turn it around where more experienced managers like Mourinho at Chelsea and Utd were unable to recover from awful early season starts. He's also still got the EL to play for as well which I cannot for the life of me understand why supporters of a club that are paupers in Europe are able to look down on. Utterly cringeworthy stuff seeing how delusional our fanbase is when you think the EL is not a big deal despite the fact that we've done fvck all in Europe.

 

[14Henry]

You didn't win the league yet you made it into the CL. That's all that matters as far as next season in concerned. A poor season in the league doesnt mean much in itself. Chelsea finished 10th in 15/16 and were league winners next season. 10th place didnt really mean jack then did it?

Chelsea were not the 10th best team in the league. It was a completely false position based on them giving up and wanting Mourinho out. Surely you know that.

They were probably one of the best 3 teams in the league on paper.

 

[AbouCuéllar]

I’ve never understood this statement. Just because Arteta never directly bought some of these players doesn’t mean they’re not his. I think most of us would agree Xhaka was Emery’s player. Did he sign him? No but he relied on him. Look at the recent decisions that Arteta has been involved in.

Kept Xhaka when he tried to go to Hertha Berlin.
Brought back Eddie on loan and didn’t wanna sell him in January
Signed Willian, Cedric and Mari
Brought back Elneny
Gave Martinelli, Auba, Balogun, and Holding new contracts
Bought Gabriel, Runnarson and Partey.
Loaned in Ødegaard
Sent Willock, Torreira and Guendouzi out on loan
Not used Nelson
Sold Martinez
Cancelled Özil, Sokratis, Mustafi and Kolasanic contracts.
I’ve tried to remain objective but as you can see, Arteta has been involved in some positives and negatives. But overall this is very much HIS squad.

A lot of fallacy in this post.

Kept Xhaka, as if that was a mistake? What was he supposed to do, let our best midfielder at the time (and best midfielder this season, despite Thomas being the more talented player) go? Evil Arteta!! What a fool.

Cedric has been a useful squad player and so has Marí. Don't get the criticism there, it's just shoehorning critique for the sake of it, probably because a lot of you criticised the moves at the time and aren't flexible enough to accept you were wrong.

Brought back Elneny-- again, Elneny is ****, but he's been an important part of this squad this season and given how poor Ceballos has been he's been completely necessary, even as the replacement or below replacement level midfielder he is.

Gave Martinelli, Auba, Balogun, and Holding new contracts-- all moves that were applauded at the time. Balogun and Martinelli should still be applauded, of course. Holding as long as we sell him there's no problem with that contract, no problem with retaining value of a player by extending.

Bought Gabriel, Runnarson, Thomas-- aside from the 2nd, all moves that were cheered vociferously, and look like good signings.

Loaned Ødegaard-- top signing...

etc. etc. etc.

In short, retaining players is not the same as choosing them, he can't just dump the whole squad like that and get new players in with the snap of a finger, it's a process, this isn't the football manager that you guys play. As demonstrated by the Xhaka critique, lol...him choosing the best option (keep a player who we certainly need currently and certainly needed last season) does not = him choosing that player. It's actually in favour of Arteta--most would've had Xhaka sold last winter, imagine how bad we'd be without our best midfielder atm and over this past year and a half, lol.

It was 100% Wenger's fault and his cringy interview a while ago made it clear that he is rather unrepentant about it. That one when he talks about how modern football has kicked out players like Özil but then we still need to think of how to fit him into our team cause he's Özil.

Dunno about 100% Wenger's fault but yeah, he certainly deserves some fault, too. But in the end, point being, laughable to fault Arteta for it, he's well down on the list after Gazidis, Raül, Em*ry, and Wenger, in whatever order you'd put them (I'd certainly put the incompetent of Gazidis first, he was the one in biggest control of the sporting direction of the club when the contract was made, and he's the one who compounded his error by hiring Em*ry).

It was a 'poor' signing only in hindsight though. If ESR and Saka hadn't emerged, we'd have relied on him more and he'd surely have produced more. Add Pepe's improvement and it makes it even harder. We got him in to be a first teamer and he ended up a squad player because our squad players became almost undroppable. That's football, but you can't call him a poor signing because of that, because had I or Arteta known how things would unfold, I wouldn't have been keen on the signing at all and I'm sure he wouldn't be here. It was a sods law signing. All said, he could well have a part to play here. He wouldn't be the first player to be dogged by fans, only to become very important.

Eh, I dunno, thing is ESR hadn't emerged in those 14 games, Pepe wasn't producing, and that's precisely when Willian would've helped the team if he had been a good season. He wasn't helping the team enough though, he wasn't the signing we thought he might be, thus it's definitely fair to call him a poor signing and a poor piece of scouting, for me.

I'd like to see him developed as a Jesús Navas style RB in his latter years...I don't know if he can defend enough for that but then people didn't think Navas could either. It was something I mentioned when we signed him as an interesting possibility to get value out of his final years, unfortunately those final years look to have come sooner than we thought.

 

[mirrorstare]

Since then he's done well to turn it around where more experienced managers like Mourinho at Chelsea and Utd were unable to recover from awful early season starts.

Because they get justifiably sacked and the teams don't want to break records of lowest points or positions in the league.

 

[Macho]

It was a 'poor' signing only in hindsight though. If ESR and Saka hadn't emerged, we'd have relied on him more and he'd surely have produced more.

Check page 1 of his thread mate wasn't hindsight at all

I agree though, if it was Willian or bust we might have seen more and he probably would have played himself into form.

There's a player in there somewhere we've seen it for years, this drastic fall off was damn near overnight. I expected this form in his second or third year of his contract or something but not this.

 

[Rimaal]

Check page 1 of his thread mate wasn't hindsight at all

I agree though, if it was Willian or bust we might have seen more and he probably would have played himself into form.

There's a player in there somewhere we've seen it for years, this drastic fall off was damn near overnight. I expected this form in his second or third year of his contract or something but not this.

Why would he need to play himself into form. He only had to cross the park to get to Arsenal. He's been playing in London for years.
He was not only a bad signing but an idiotic one. If his own club would ;t give him more than a year's contract, what fool thought we needed to tie him down to 3? Why? What value would a player like him have in the market as a sale?

I wouldn't even call it ineptitude. It's pure corruption. a deal made to curry favour with his agent.

 

[scytheavatar]

It was a 'poor' signing only in hindsight though. If ESR and Saka hadn't emerged, we'd have relied on him more and he'd surely have produced more. Add Pepe's improvement and it makes it even harder. We got him in to be a first teamer and he ended up a squad player because our squad players became almost undroppable. That's football, but you can't call him a poor signing because of that, because had I or Arteta known how things would unfold, I wouldn't have been keen on the signing at all and I'm sure he wouldn't be here. It was a sods law signing. All said, he could well have a part to play here. He wouldn't be the first player to be dogged by fans, only to become very important.

We got him to be a first teamer and he ended up a squad player because he's not good enough. If ESR and Saka hadn't emerged we could have very well gotten relegated if the Kroenkes refuse to sack Arteta till the end. I can call Willian a poor signing because we might as well have given Mkhitaryan a contract extension instead of signing WIllian. Cause Mkhitaryan is the better player.

 

[LuanNguyen]

Check page 1 of his thread mate wasn't hindsight at all

I agree though, if it was Willian or bust we might have seen more and he probably would have played himself into form.

There's a player in there somewhere we've seen it for years, this drastic fall off was damn near overnight. I expected this form in his second or third year of his contract or something but not this.

A lot of players became miserably poor under Arteta.

 

[Jury]

Check page 1 of his thread mate wasn't hindsight at all

I agree though, if it was Willian or bust we might have seen more and he probably would have played himself into form.

There's a player in there somewhere we've seen it for years, this drastic fall off was damn near overnight. I expected this form in his second or third year of his contract or something but not this.

I've not looked at the first page, but all I remember regarding those who gave the reasons for not signing him back then, were the length of contract, him being ex-chelsea and his wages. Most acknowledged he was a good player.

 

[Rex Stone]

I've not looked at the first page, but all I remember regarding the reasons for not signing him were the length of contract, him being ex-chelsea and his wages. Most acknowledged he was a good player.

He was sensational post lockdown last year for them and I thought he’d bang here.

Whether or not he got his fat contract and packed it in I don’t know. I guess this a clear example why it’s not good practice to renew or sign players to big wages who are way north of 30.

They can decline really suddenly and then the contract turns into an albatross overnight a la Özil. We’re probably stuck with Willian for another two years.

 

[TornadoTed]

I don't see why Mikel's job should hinge on EL success or failure. If we do win the EL then we will have beat 1 team (Man Utd) who are above or equal to our level, every other team we will have beaten we should damn well beat. Mikel should not be excused for this truly awful season for the sake of 1 good win in my opinion.

I do feel sorry for him in many ways as I think at least a few of his troubles could have been avoided if he had a Terry Phelan, Brian Kidd, Ray Lewington type assistant. However it's too late for me, I am definitely in the camp of 'sack him whatever happens' now, my patience has run out and I consider myself a pretty patient kind of guy.

 

[Macho]

Why would he need to play himself into form. He only had to cross the park to get to Arsenal. He's been playing in London for years.
He was not only a bad signing but an idiotic one. If his own club would ;t give him more than a year's contract, what fool thought we needed to tie him down to 3? Why? What value would a player like him have in the market as a sale?

I wouldn't even call it ineptitude. It's pure corruption. a deal made to curry favour with his agent.

Every player has a certain level or form or confidence throughout their career they aren't machines. He's also under a different manager and with a different team these things matter.

I've always liked Willian in his Chelsea days so to me, this wishy washy form is not new at all (apart for the extended duration of this current slump).

The deal stinks but the squad is shy of experience so signing an experienced attacker wasn't a horrendous call - it just shouldn't have been Willian or this contract. Edu clearly had other dodgy ideas but I think Arteta genuinely wanted him onboard for footballing reasons.

 

[Jury]

He was sensational post lockdown last year for them and I thought he’d bang here.

Whether or not he got his fat contract and packed it in I don’t know. I guess this a clear example why it’s not good practice to renew or sign players to big wages who are way north of 30.

They can decline really suddenly and then the contract turns into an albatross overnight a la Özil. We’re probably stuck with Willian for another two years.

He hasn't declined in that space of time--no more than what's normal anyway, which is not enough to notice unless it's exacerbated by injury. In theory, because he's played in the prem for so long, you'd think it'd be the smoothest of transitions, but there are obviously more factors which have affected him, and others. FWIW, he's looked very sharp for a fair bit now. Had some very good games when he's started actually, but it's frowned upon to acknowledge.