Mikel Arteta: Aston La Vista To The Title?

[grange]

Kid, I'm sure you know that children like you are best seen and not heard. Why else do you think your parents told you to stay in your room until school starts back up.

I yawned. I'll give you a break though since @A__G eviscerated you in embarrassing fashion.

 

[Makingtrax]

Arteta didn’t say this, Willian did.

No he didn’t. Willian said:

“When I talked with the manager he told me why he needed me for three years.
It was that he first wanted to qualify for the Champions League and win it by the time I left. That was what I wanted to hear.”

Arteta hasn’t done either of those two things.

 

[Makingtrax]

The football is atrocious, and we were arguably very lucky to finish where we did last season under context, but I can't blame the West Ham fan at all for supporting the process. For him, it means one rival less.

You lot don't like them, but at least the United fans around here are more honest. They could hugely benefit too from selling us the Arteta is improvement fairytale, but they prefer to tell things as they are. It's a matter of principles.

Spot on. The West Ham fan doesn’t like to be questioned though. Expect him to call you a **** and accuse of doing something you haven’t. Oh, I see he has already.

 

[grange]

No he didn’t. Willian said:

Since when did you trust double agents that we signed from Chelsea's retirement home? Willian was so overcome with his lying that he gave up millions to hide out in Brazil. Some people have the stomach to defraud their wages (like Cech) and can still sleep at night. Willian couldn't handle the espionage/sabotage.

 

[OnlyOne]

 

[Deleted member 102404]

It’s like you said though, if we spend another sh!t load of cash again this summer even an average manager could stumble into the top 4 at the 4th attempt with this type of spend.

That sounds like you are preparing an excuse in case he is successful TBH.

 

[Entropics]

That was so inspired from Laca, gets the attention of both defenders and thanks to that little block, solves Saka's known indecision when finishing, pretty much giving him a comfortable path to shoot. Absolutely brilliant.

Still a joke that people call that performance peak Artetaball lol, not only because we lost, but because the player that made the goal happen got hounded out of the club.

 

[Makingtrax]

That sounds like you are preparing an excuse in case he is successful TBH.

Wow, top 4 is successful? AM told me 'any manager could get top 4 with Arsenal' and 'it wasn't a trophy'.

 

[Macho]

Wow, top 4 is successful? AM told me 'any manager could get top 4 with Arsenal' and 'it wasn't a trophy'.

Is taking this long and spending this much to get CL really success?

Progress yes, success? ask this same fan base 5 years ago. Maybe Arteta makes it sweeter for some I don't know. Odd phrasing for sure.

 

[Bagels]

See a lot of posts re: worshipping Arteta, cult behavior, comparisons with Wenger, etc.

In my opinion these are totally sensationalized / over the top.

I don't think there's a logical inconsistency between being Wenger-out during his final years and Arteta-in today. The commonality is trend.

Wenger's trend was a very gradual downward dip (from a high peak).

Arteta's trend since taking over from Emery is a gradual up (albeit from a very low base and with the benefit of money -- nobody is disputing these facts).

Therefore the onus is on Arteta to continue to trend up, especially given the money it seems we will be spending this summer.

If he doesn't manage that, I'd wager a lot of Arteta-ins quickly convert to out, and then it becomes a case of fanbase vs. the board ala Wenger's final seasons.

This concept of worshipping Arteta like some kind of God is just stupid. People are fans of the club and they judge its managers according to whatever rubric they find most relevant.

My observations exactly, glad to see someone verbalize this so well. Unfortunately the rhetoric spewed towards anyone with a difference of opinion in this thread, and the massive conflations/false inferences and assumptions that comes along with the sensationalized and polarizing rhetoric cuts any productive and honest debate short.

This is not just regarding "outers" towards "inners", but vice versa also. It's lazy and easy to attribute every difference in opinion to "cult worshipper", or "not real fan", instead of recognizing theres a million reasons someone might come to the conclusions they have, many of them logically justified. Nuance actually exists!

 

[Entropics]

There is no nuance in pretending Arteta has been an upwards trend and ignoring he's the first manager in decades to get us out of Europe.

They get called a cult because using their own arguments from the past they should have been "outers" already.

 

[Bagels]

There is no nuance in pretending Arteta has been an upwards trend and ignoring he's the first manager in decades to get us out of Europe.

They get called a cult because using their own arguments from the past they should have been "outers" already.

In my post I meant nuance in regard to the wide range of opinions (from all sides and angles) and even wider range of reasons people might have for those opinions - not specifically @Fallout's.

Unfortunately - and I shouldn't have to explain this - even if you disagree with his assessment there are reasonable points of discussion to be had. He points out that the gradual trend upwards started from a low-base (discussion point - why was it so low in the first place), why was the trend so gradual (discussion point - two 8th place finishes before finally seeing improvement to 5th), and (discussion point) why did it take so much money (as he concedes) to get there. A fair and reasonable argument could be made either side of all those points.

Instead you pretend there isn't an objective improvement from 8th to 5th (rather than questioning Arteta's ineptitude at two 8th place finishes in the first instances, whether that is a sufficient improvement with the squad at his disposable, or the incredible amount of funds made available for transfers, just a few E.G), and kill any reasonable conversation by lumping in the poster with a monolithic "they" of cult "inners" who all make exactly the same arguments, and are apparently all hypocrites according to their own hive-mind logic. I understand, though, that actually engaging with the posters individual points/thoughts/views/beliefs on the topic is much more critically demanding than using lazily-made generalizations.

To each their own, just find it odd that on a forum meant for discussion people can be so uninterested in actually having any.

 

[tcahill]

Perhaps that says more about your fixation on this thread rather than my assumed obsession with Mikel?



I don't think improvement is guaranteed either, but I guess I'm more inclined to give additional time to a manager in his first job, especially given the situation he was hired into. He was always going to be prone to mistakes, and given it's his first job he has a lot to learn. Maybe a lot of the frustration towards him isn't actually aimed at him, but rather frustration towards the board who decided to hire a complete unknown quantity on the promise of him developing as a manager?

In many ways his appointment is extremely atypical and the usual timelines of how a manager is supposed to perform is all messed up because of it. If this was Emery, he'd be sacked by now, but he wasn't hired to deliver instant success but rather on the hopes of him developing into a top class manager. I understand why some fans are extremely frustrated. I'm not even sure I can find many parallels in football like this situation where a young unproven manager gets his first job at a massive club and given way more leeway than your typical managerial appointment.

The only thing I really object to is the idea that top 4 is a minimum for success. I think that's simply unrealistic when you consider your current stature in game, and I'd make that point regardless of who the manager was. You're likely not going to get consistent top 4 until you either hire a Klopp-level manager or get new ownership. Until then, it'll be a rotating chair between you, Sp**s and Newcastle, all 3 just waiting on one of the other 4 to slip up like Man Utd did this season. Given more time, top 4 will probably be even further away once Newcastle really start throwing the slave dollars around. The people saying top 4 is a minimum are quite frankly living in 2012.

I think people severely underestimate how bad our situation was the season Arteta took over. Looking at the squad list now with the benefit of hindsight, only Auba and maybe Tierney were actually top 4 level players, and most were ageing and basically unsellable. Many of our regular starters then completely flopped at their next clubs.

I think there's plenty of valid criticisms leveled at Arteta here, but I'm liking the steady improvement of our squad both on the pitch and financially, and for that alone I'm happy with him for now.

 

[shoot for the top]

I think people severely underestimate how bad our situation was the season Arteta took over. Looking at the squad list now with the benefit of hindsight, only Auba and maybe Tierney were actually top 4 level players, and most were ageing and basically unsellable. Many of our regular starters then completely flopped at their next clubs.

I think there's plenty of valid criticisms leveled at Arteta here, but I'm liking the steady improvement of our squad both on the pitch and financially, and for that alone I'm happy with him for now.

Per 90, our goals and assist went down compared to last season. When our opponents faced us, they were expected to score more per 90 as well.

 

[jones]

Maybe Arteta makes it sweeter for some I don't know. Odd phrasing for sure.

@ExtjExhtts

 

[Oxeki]

That’s a lie. Wenger’s trend was:

a) fantastic 8 year period when he had cash to spend, invincible even
b) unbelievable 9 year period of continuous top 4 when he had nothing to spend on players.
c) steady 3year improvement when the purse strings slackened 4th to 3rd to 2nd + 3 cups.
d) rapid two year decline when the rants, planes, boycotts and stadium protest turned Arsenal toxic.

Tell me I’m wrong!

Corrected.

 

[Baki]

Arteta is a **** and so are his supporters.

 

[SA Gunner]

There is no nuance in pretending Arteta has been an upwards trend and ignoring he's the first manager in decades to get us out of Europe.

They get called a cult because using their own arguments from the past they should have been "outers" already.

So those who back Arteta over here, and post their reasons for doing so, are the ones who are part of a cult eh?

 

[Sapient Hawk]

Arteta is a **** and so are his supporters.

@albakos another gem for the classic posts thread

 

[Blood on the Tracks]

Honestly there's no point in this thread anymore.

It's just a circlejerk of people competing to dislike Arteta more than the previous person. It's to the point now that it's an irrational level of hate in my view. Like, he can't have banged all your mums or girlfriends

You're not allowed to make a single observation that Arteta has done well in one facet of his job without getting jumped on as being in a 'Cult'

These Arteta cult members just don't exist on here, bar maybe 1-2. It's a strawman fan that's been created so people can vent their fury on and use as a punchbag. No-ones riding Arteta hard but anything sort of total condemnation gets you cast as a cult member.

It's no surprise that virtually everyone with a somewhat positive view of Arteta has fled this thread. It's a waste of time to be honest.

Even @Dokaka gets turned on for giving his opinions. A West Ham fan who has no reason at all to be part of the Arteta cult but is still treated as such.