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Mikel Arteta: Top Of The Klopps

CaseUteinberger

Established Member

Country: Sweden
I am most assuredly not an 'Arteta fan'.

I think there are things to like about him, and things I have significant concerns about. I was close to fully wanting him out in December. Since then, things have significantly improved and the team has a top-5 record in the PL since Christmas - so the recent results are meeting your expectations.

The absolute stupidest thing in modern football is firing your manager every year at the first sign of a slump. Then a new guy comes in with a whole bunch of players he doesn't like/want and tries to put in a new system. Gets one offseason to bring in some new players, then gets fired at the first slump. New guy then inherits a new mess. It's ****ing idiotic. It's why teams can't get out of bad cycles. It's why a team like United is playing better with a crap manager in OGS that they've kept around for a bit than they did with actual good managers they kept quickly recycling.

I like what Arteta has done with this team defensively. I see improvements offensively. I'm willing to give him one normal offseason and a start to a normal season next season to see if he can build on some of the things that have happened this year to get results. If we're in 10th at Christmas - bye. That doesn't make me some sort of blind 'Arteta fan' who is somehow cheering for the manager over the fortunes of the team.

As I've said a few times, I'm 'Arteta neutral' but unless things are totally going into the tank - and they currently aren't - I'll err on the side of keeping the manager rather than running around thinking hiring some new guy is going to magically fix years of endemic rot in the team.
What the flaming ****? A measured and well reasoned post about Arteta on AM? Mate, you are in wrong forum! Here only black or white exists. You are either a godlike manager or absolute bottom of the barrel ****! Learn to reason like a 5th grader or **** the hell out of here! ;)
 

Melquiades

Active Member
He should be doing better and I think with a bunch of good signings this summer we will surely make strides next season with Arteta. But with Arsenal in all my years of supporting them, we’ve never really backed a manager massively - so I think the bulk of our current starting line up will be the same next season.

I wouldn't disagree with that. I wouldn't expect some sort of spending spree. If we can get a solid upgrade at RB and another quality CM that would be pretty decent.

Not having a proper 10 through the first 15 games killed us. Arteta obviously learned from that and presumably won't be making that mistake again. And again - hire a young manager, he's going to make some mistakes. Hiring a young manager knowing he'll make mistakes and then firing him because of those entirely predictable mistakes is the definition of insanity.

It has to be said how fine the margins are this year. If you flip that Wolves result in a game we were dominating before the bizarre red card, we're in 8th and only 3 points behind Liverpool/Everton.
 

Melquiades

Active Member
What the flaming ****? A measured and well reasoned post about Arteta on AM? Mate, you are in wrong forum! Here only black or white exists. You are either a godlike manager or absolute bottom of the barrel ****! Learn to reason like a 5th grader or **** the hell out of here! ;)

It's so weird to me. Again, if we had fired Arteta at Christmas and the new manager had :

a) turned the team around by inserting ESR at 10.
b) stuck Willian on the bench for the last two months.
c) had the 5th best record in the PL since Christmas.
d) had seen our offensive results jump from 18th pre-Christmas to 5th post-Christmas.
e) had the 3rd best defensive record in the PL.

... that new manager would be getting celebrated like a god here right now. But when a young manager learns from some mistakes and makes those exact improvements, it seems like everyone refuses to adjust to the new information and just keeps screaming ARTETA OUT because we sucked 4 months ago and look at the standings. And obviously when you have a bad stretch of play early in a season it's going to impact your position in the standings for that whole year, so lets keep bring that up over and over again.

Let's say we finish 8th-9th this year but at the end of the season have the 5th best record over the final 25 games of the season. Is it really logical to defend dropping a manager who had excellent results that met expectations in the most recent large sample size because the team had a bad slump in November? Can anyone actually defend that? The whole thing makes no sense to me.
 

CaseUteinberger

Established Member

Country: Sweden
It's so weird to me. Again, if we had fired Arteta at Christmas and the new manager had :

a) turned the team around by inserting ESR at 10.
b) stuck Willian on the bench for the last two months.
c) had the 5th best record in the PL since Christmas.
d) had seen our offensive results jump from 18th pre-Christmas to 5th post-Christmas.
e) had the 3rd best defensive record in the PL.

... that new manager would be getting celebrated like a god here right now. But when a young manager learns from some mistakes and makes those exact improvements, it seems like everyone refuses to adjust to the new information and just keeps screaming ARTETA OUT because we sucked 4 months ago and look at the standings. And obviously when you have a bad stretch of play early in a season it's going to impact your position in the standings for that whole year, so lets keep bring that up over and over again.

Let's say we finish 8th-9th this year but at the end of the season have the 5th best record over the final 25 games of the season. Is it really logical to defend dropping a manager who had excellent results that met expectations in the most recent large sample size because the team had a bad slump in November? Can anyone actually defend that? The whole thing makes no sense to me.
I'm fully with you. I don't think it makes much sense to keep on chopping and changing managers unless you dose the squad in money like Chelsea do. For us it is better to stick with Arteta and hope we have made the right decision in hiring a young and unproven manager. Let him implement what he thinks is right. I would be okay with another season at least, unless things turn absolutely to ****.
 

EmeryCouldnt

Established Member
Insanity is looking at poop and putting a positive spin on it to convince yourself and others it’s a bar of soap, when the ting is clearly poop.

Pretty much what some posters and media outlets have tried to do this season. We can all clearly see he’s a novice manager, but instead of calling it like it is sometimes, everything else except Arteta gets blamed.

What if the club decide not to go on a shopping spree this summer? Where does this leave us under Arteta?

It's fertilizer. You can sell it for $25 a ton. Worth more, by weight, than Ceballos.
 

scytheavatar

Established Member
It's so weird to me. Again, if we had fired Arteta at Christmas and the new manager had :

a) turned the team around by inserting ESR at 10.
b) stuck Willian on the bench for the last two months.
c) had the 5th best record in the PL since Christmas.
d) had seen our offensive results jump from 18th pre-Christmas to 5th post-Christmas.
e) had the 3rd best defensive record in the PL.

... that new manager would be getting celebrated like a god here right now. But when a young manager learns from some mistakes and makes those exact improvements, it seems like everyone refuses to adjust to the new information and just keeps screaming ARTETA OUT because we sucked 4 months ago and look at the standings. And obviously when you have a bad stretch of play early in a season it's going to impact your position in the standings for that whole year, so lets keep bring that up over and over again.

Let's say we finish 8th-9th this year but at the end of the season have the 5th best record over the final 25 games of the season. Is it really logical to defend dropping a manager who had excellent results that met expectations in the most recent large sample size because the team had a bad slump in November? Can anyone actually defend that? The whole thing makes no sense to me.

The season is more than 25 games, and 5th best record doesn't get you into the top 4. The expectations this season is that Arteta would get us competitive in the top 4 race, like Emery did in his first season, and Arteta felt way, way short of those expectations. How is that acceptable? Arteta's improvements are too little too late, he just made his team less ****. He has done nothing to make me feel we can be competitive to even Chelsea anytime soon.
 

Iceman10

Established Member
Ideally we need Vinai and/or Josh Kroenke on the record regarding what happens to our transfer budget if we fall out of EL, although I know the likely answer will be some unsatisfying vague BS. I can only go on what I see itk’s reasonably close to the club say, and they are pretty much indicating that Arteta needs to requalify for EL to be backed in the transfer market. That indicates to me the Kroenke’s will not respond to falling out of top 6 with urgency to get back up there. It’s up to them and Vinai to prove such concerns are wrong.
 

Makingtrax

Worships in the house of Wenger 🙏
Trusted ⭐

Country: England

Player:Saliba
Do you think that maybe it's possible that it's fair to judge a young manager who is coming into a poor squad in a year completely screwed up by COVID by *slightly* different standards than you'd judge a 70 y/o manager with a roster he'd spent 23 years building?

I wanted Wenger to stay. He's one of the greatest managers in the history of the sport. But I don't ****ing care about him any more. It's done. He's gone. There's been a whole other different manager in between since. We can see pretty clearly that that new manager inherited a squad with all kinds of problems from previous administrations. He's also had to deal with the strangest season in sporting history.

This team has had 5 years of rot starting with the 2016 offseason. It should be instantly obvious that a new young manager coming into this team (in an exceptionally difficult year) would have lower standards than Wenger had in 2015-16 with an outstanding squad.

This team could rise Bill Shankly from the grave and if he'd taken over mid 19-20 he wouldn't have this team in a CL position right now. You've basically created yourself a position where literally any/every manager that could be in place with this team would be a failure with the standards you've set.

This roster is not good enough for a top-4 finish. We're maybe the 5th biggest club in England right now and when you're the 5th biggest club who has spent terribly for the last 5 years, you aren't going to somehow get better than the 5th-best results. The fact that Wenger worked miracles for this team several years ago doesn't mean that the current manager - whose situation has literally nothing to do with Arsène Wenger - is a failure and needs to be replaced if he isn't working even greater miracles to match Wenger's results.

I'm not sure if Arteta is the long-term manager here. But I've seen enough things to give me hope that he could be and I think booting him out of here before he's even had a normal season to work with is idiotic, and that the grass isn't going to be somehow greener without him.
Now you've hit the nail on the head. You want to hold Arteta to different standards to Arsène and Unai.

Well I don't, they all should be held to exactly the same standards. Unai only got 18 months and has a better record, Wenger was forced out with a campaign after coming 2nd ffs.

Arteta is in the bottom half of the table come March and everybody's still supporting him. He's on £5m a year in a results based business, and its pretty obvious he's not going to improve on Unai's 5th place any time soon.

All that's happening is that expectations and standards are sliding fast. And don't even start me 0n the style of football.
 

TornadoTed

Established Member
I voted 4, almost a 5 but downgraded after more thought.

I think Mikel has had it pretty tough in some ways and I have sympathy for him in a few respects.

The squad was way to big to be harmonious and I felt that a few unhappy players was almost inevitable when you have 34 first team players.

Not having a proper pre season can't have been easy.

I think he should have been given a more experienced team around him, someone similar to Terry Phelan at United, someone who has been there, seen it and done it to help him when he has struggled could have avoided some of his mistakes.

He has improved the defence, the passing from the back and we generally the shape of the team looks more solid.

However,

The football has been truly woeful at times, really eye bleeding stuff.

He has made some really strange decisions, dropping Pepe after having a few good games being the most recent.

We are 11th in the League which is just embarrassing and most games feel like such a struggle, it has really sapped my energy and enthusiasm for watching.
 

Blood on the Tracks

AG's best friend, role model and mentor.
Trusted ⭐

Country: England

Player:Rice
It's so weird to me. Again, if we had fired Arteta at Christmas and the new manager had :

a) turned the team around by inserting ESR at 10.
b) stuck Willian on the bench for the last two months.
c) had the 5th best record in the PL since Christmas.
d) had seen our offensive results jump from 18th pre-Christmas to 5th post-Christmas.
e) had the 3rd best defensive record in the PL.

... that new manager would be getting celebrated like a god here right now. But when a young manager learns from some mistakes and makes those exact improvements, it seems like everyone refuses to adjust to the new information and just keeps screaming ARTETA OUT because we sucked 4 months ago and look at the standings. And obviously when you have a bad stretch of play early in a season it's going to impact your position in the standings for that whole year, so lets keep bring that up over and over again.

Let's say we finish 8th-9th this year but at the end of the season have the 5th best record over the final 25 games of the season. Is it really logical to defend dropping a manager who had excellent results that met expectations in the most recent large sample size because the team had a bad slump in November? Can anyone actually defend that? The whole thing makes no sense to me.

This is one of the more logical and nuanced posts I've read on here.

There was a lot of talk that Arteta needed to improve around November / December. Objectively he has done that by most metrics.

Seems kind of pointless to continually use the first 3 months or so of the season as a stick to beat him with given our improvements since Christmas.

If the 4-5 months post Christmas ends up with us finishing 6-7th but on roughly top 4 pace for that time period I think it would be hard not to back Arteta going into next season, personally.
 
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Jury

A-M's drunk uncle
But if we'd fired him on December 25 and the new manager had literally the *exact* results playing the exact players that Arteta has had since Christmas, pretty much everyone dumping on Arteta right now would be celebrating that new manager for turning things around to such an extent.
It’s this. That’s what irks me a bit. The refusal to acknowledge an upturn. That upturn has to continue for it to be anything of note and to add justification for him to continue beyond this campaign, but I believe what we’ve seen recently would have been hailed as an achievement had someone else taken over at Christmas—it’s just kind of being ignored as if the situation had gone beyond redemption.
 

OnlyOne

‘Donkeys don’t have a peak, they remain useless’
Trusted ⭐

Country: England
Worth listening to in full

I think this is true to some extent, but look at West Ham atm, they literally have the worst owners in the world and are currently smashing it.

Arsenal have a core that's the most important part, and Josh who is more involved now then he has been before. We just don't have the right guys making the right decisions since ages back.
 

mpower2540

Well-Known Member
It's so weird to me. Again, if we had fired Arteta at Christmas and the new manager had :

a) turned the team around by inserting ESR at 10.
b) stuck Willian on the bench for the last two months.
c) had the 5th best record in the PL since Christmas.
d) had seen our offensive results jump from 18th pre-Christmas to 5th post-Christmas.
e) had the 3rd best defensive record in the PL.

... that new manager would be getting celebrated like a god here right now. But when a young manager learns from some mistakes and makes those exact improvements, it seems like everyone refuses to adjust to the new information and just keeps screaming ARTETA OUT because we sucked 4 months ago and look at the standings. And obviously when you have a bad stretch of play early in a season it's going to impact your position in the standings for that whole year, so lets keep bring that up over and over again.

Let's say we finish 8th-9th this year but at the end of the season have the 5th best record over the final 25 games of the season. Is it really logical to defend dropping a manager who had excellent results that met expectations in the most recent large sample size because the team had a bad slump in November? Can anyone actually defend that? The whole thing makes no sense to me.
Very fair post but my issue is that all of a sudden he’s moving away from what seemed to be working to shoehorn in his favourites. That’s not good management, it’s failure to recognise what was driving his team to better results!

Smith Rowe was hugely important at 10 because of his relationships with the other players. He was linking well with Saka, providing a link for Pepe, running in behind and all of a sudden he’s been moved in favour of a shiny new player who’s very much the quintessential number 10. Ødegaard is nice but he seems far less involved to me, and the only players that actually move into space for him are Aubameyang and Saka. If you’re going to play Ødegaard give him runners he can pick out!! That’s his game ffs! Don’t give him a load of players that want the ball to feet and pass it between themselves. One or the other, It’s pointless playing both!

He should be able to see this but he’s actively unbalancing the team in order to satisfy his own favourites/ideals from my standpoint and that’s just not good enough.
 

Iceman10

Established Member
He should be able to see this but he’s actively unbalancing the team in order to satisfy his own favourites/ideals from my standpoint and that’s just not good enough.

My opinion is Mikel can probably see the imbalance created, but he’s giving Ødegaard as many minutes as possible because the loan is short and he wants to convince everyone, including the player, on doing a permanent transfer this summer. I don’t know how to prove this though.
 

Makingtrax

Worships in the house of Wenger 🙏
Trusted ⭐

Country: England

Player:Saliba
It’s this. That’s what irks me a bit. The refusal to acknowledge an upturn. That upturn has to continue for it to be anything of note and to add justification for him to continue beyond this campaign, but I believe what we’ve seen recently would have been hailed as an achievement had someone else taken over at Christmas—it’s just kind of being ignored as if the situation had gone beyond redemption.
Are you sure you realise you’re defending a manager who’s in the bottom half of the table and 8 places behind Leicester? Or even what day it is. Not long ago not winning the league was sackable for an Arsenal manager. I’m guessing this new you must be on Prozac. Otherwise it’s all very strange for a simple person to understand :lol::lol::lol:
If he wins the league, I'll be happy to see him have another go at retaining it. But the truth is he didn't deserve another shot after the clusterfvck of last preseason, and the subsequent humiliation of finishing behind Leicester, in a penalty kick of a chance of winning the league..
 

Blood on the Tracks

AG's best friend, role model and mentor.
Trusted ⭐

Country: England

Player:Rice
People have been crying out on here for Auba up top for ages.

Well, we've got to play to his strengths. He's not going to create chances himself and his all round game is fairly limited but he's a brilliant goalscorer.

The way to get the best out of him is to have him supported and flanked by more technically proficient player like ESR, Ødegaard, Saka etc who have vision and can pick out a pass or thread the ball through the eye of a needle.

Everything should be built around maximising the amount of chances those 3 positions can create for him. Ødegaard, ESR are exactly the sort of players you want doing that. They can be very fluid too, there's no need to set ESR as on the left and Ødegaard centrally in stone.

You feed Auba consistently and we win more matches it's as simple as that.

It's a little harsh on the likes of Martinelli and Pepe but I really don't see how they fit in this system.
 

Jury

A-M's drunk uncle
Are you sure you realise you’re defending a manager who’s in the bottom half of the table and 8 places behind Leicester? Or even what day it is. Not long ago not winning the league was sackable for an Arsenal manager. I’m guessing this new you must be on Prozac. Otherwise it’s all very strange for a simple person to understand :lol::lol::lol:
Context, dear lad.

Now go floss out Big Wengz’ scrote hair before brekky!
 

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